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ON THE 



ORIGIN AND RAMIFICATIONS 



OF THE 



ENGLISH LANGUAGE 



PKECEDED BY 



AN INaUIRY 



PRBHTIVE SEATS, EARLY MIGRATIONS, AND FINAL SETTLEMENTS 
OP THE PRINCIPAL EUROPEAN NATIONS. 



BY 



HENRY WELSFORD, ESQ. 



That pale, that white-fac'd shore, 
Whose foot spurns back the ocean's roarhig tides. 
And coops from other lands her islanders, 

Shakspeare's King John. 




LONDON: 

LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS, 

PATERNOSTER-ROW. 

1845. • 



<1- 



>>^''. 






^0 o 



4 -r 
>?- London : 

Printed by A. SpomswooDE, 
New- Street- Square. 



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PREFACE. 



There are two circumstances which have misled 
all modern philologists, as well English as German, 
and which, until they are put on a proper footing, 
will continue to mislead all future inquirers, which 
may be stated as follows : — 

1. That the barbarous nations which overthrew 

the Roman Empire in the fifth century, and 
which are denominated by the historians of 
the middle ages the Northern Hive, came 
from Scandinavia, and that Scandinavia 
was situated in the north of Europe, and 
limited to the modern kingdoms of Sweden, 
Norway, and Denmark. 

2. That the people first mentioned by Herodotus, 

and denominated by him Celtse and Cynetas, 
were a perfectly distinct race, and spoke a 
language radically different from the other 
great race, denominated by him Scythians 
or Thracians, who are still regarded as the 

A 2 



IV PEEFACE. 

sole progenitors of the Gothic or Teutonic 
race. It is almost certain that Celtge and 
Scythse were merely different names of the 
same people, or, at any rate, that they stand 
in the relation to each other of a part to the 
whole, and that they have been regarded as 
perfectly distinct merely from the circum- 
stance that Herodotus mentions the former 
as the inhabitants of the extreme west of 
Europe, and the latter of the extreme north, 
that is, of the countries to the north of the 
Danube, for his knowledge of Europe ex- 
tended very little further ; while D'AnviUe, 
following other ancient historians and geo- 
graphers, says expressly that the name of 
Celtica in the earliest antiquity was ex- 
tended to all the northern part of Europe. 

The first error originated partly from the igno- 
rance of two leading authorities of the middle ages, 
Jornandes and Procopius, and partly from sub- 
sequent writers misunderstanding them, and sup- 
posing them to refer to the Baltic, when they clearly 
intended to refer to the Euxine ; and as if this were 
not enough, much of what they have written has 
been industriously perverted by Grotius their 
editor, in his anxiety to compliment and pay his 



PREFACE. . V 

court to Christina of Sweden, by exaggerating the 
antiquity and importance of the northern king- 
doms. Grotius misled Montesquieu and Gibbon, 
and since their time the subject has excited very 
little attention. 

The second error, if it did not originate with, 
has at any rate had currency given to it in England 
by, Dr. Percy, Bishop of Dromore, the translator 
of Mallet's Northern Antiquities, who has exerted 
all his efforts to prove that the Celtic and the Teu- 
tonic are radically different languages. No one 
doubts the difference between Irish, and Welsh, and 
German, or English ; but that proves nothing with 
respect to the Celtse and Scythians in the age of 
Herodotus, or even of Jornandes a thousand years 
later. 

The most considerable advance in a right direc- 
tion that has been made for many years past ap- 
pears to me to have been, by a very distinguished 
living author, Dr. Prichard, in his learned and 
admirable little work, entitled " The Eastern Origin 
of the Celtic Nations proved by a comparison of 
their Dialects with the Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, and 
Teutonic Languages," which in great measure gave 
birth to the following inquiry, which may be 

A 3 



VI PREFACE. 

regarded to a considerable extent as a continuation 
of the subject. Scandinavia, so far from baviiig 
been confined to the north of Europe, comprehended 
great part of the north of Asia, and was equivalent 
to Scythia, or Tartary, in their widest sense ; and 
until the languages of modern Europe are traced 
to Asia, and those of the East carefully examined 
with express reference to the origin, formation, and 
affinities of those of the West, all the assistance 
will not have been rendered to Philology that 
in the present advanced state of knowledge it is 
susceptible of receiving. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 



ON THE GENEALOGICAL ORIGIN OF THE NAMES OF TRIBES ANl> 

NATIONS. 

Page 

1. The Angli of Tacitus - - . - i 

2. Limited range of Political Philosophy - - 2 

3. The Languages of Europe cannot be fully illustrated 

without a knowledge of those of Asia - - 3 

4. Pinkerton's Remarks on the Genealogical System of the 

Greeks — Asia — Libya — Europe — Shem, Ham, and 
Japhet — Sharma, Charma, and lapeti - - o 

5. The descendants of Japhet — Chin, Turc, Tatar, and 

Mongol-Oghuz, the prototype of the Greek Ogyges - 8 

6. Origin of the Scythians — Targitaus — Scytha — Her- 

cules — Perses — Perseus — Persia, Media, Armenia 9 

7. Universality of the same Traditions — Menu — Meon — 

Manes — Minos — Menes — Mannus - - 11 

8. The Leleges — The Carians — Lydus, Mysus, and Tyr- 

rhenus — Kilix, Phoenix, and Thasos — Cadmus and 
Europa - - - - - - 12 

9. Lycus, the son of Pandion — ^gyptus and Danaus — 

Hellen and his three sons, ^olus, Dorus, and Xuthus 
— Thrax — Biston — Italus — Galatus — Francus — 
Brutus - - - - - - 14 

10. Li all these instances the children older than their 

parents. — Real origin of the name of the Icarian Sea 1 6 



A 4 



G C 



VIU CONTENTS. 



CHAP. II. 



AN INVESTIGATION OF THE REAL CAUSES WHICH GAVE OEIGIN 
TO THE NAMES OF TRIBES AND NATIONS. 

Page 

11. All Proper Names originally significant - - 18 

12. The leading circumstances which gave origin to the 

names of Nations, arranged under six heads - 19 

1. Climate. 

13. Hebrew names of the Euphrates and Tigris - - 19 

14. Siberia — Mount Imaus — Mount Hsemus — Himalaya 

Mountains — Sarmatia and the Sarmatians - 21 

15. Egypt — Ham and Cham — Hindustan — Ethiopia — 

Mauritania — Libya - - - - 23 

2. Locality. 

1. Cimmeria — The Cimmerians, Cimbri, and Cymri - 24 

2. Tartary — Tartarus - - - - 25 

3. Taran — Tour an _ - - - ih. 

4. Arabia — Erebus — Erembi - - - 26 

5. Bactriana - - - - - 27 

6. Saracens - - - - - ih. 

3. Abode. 

16. The Carians formerly Leleges, and the Lydians Mas- 

onians - - - - - - 27 

17. Disagreement between Herodotus and Homer - 28 

18. One Etymology of the name of Leleges - - 29 

1. Leleges, or possessing no house, i. e. dwelling in tents ib. 

2. Hagarenes, and Hagarites „ - 30 

3. Kedar, a name of the Arabians „ - ib. 

4. Skenites, or Scenites „ - ib. 

5. Nabatheans „ - 31 

6. Helots, Elauts, or Hotes „ - ib. 

4. Food. 

19. Passage from De Pauw supported by one from He- 

rodotus - - - - - - 32 

L Cushite — - Cush — Cuth — Scuth— Thrax, or Thraks 

— Goth — Getse - - - - 33 



CONTENTS. IX 

Page 

2. Massa-Getae — Mysians — Maeso-Goths - - 35 

3 . Galaktophagi — Hippomulgi — Galatae — Galatians 

— CeltaB, Gael, and Gaul, from Galatae - 36 

5. Religion. 

20. It does not appear to have occurred to any one that 

many of the names of Nations may have been deriv- 
ed from those of the Deities they worshipped - 37 

1. Scandinavia, from Scanda, the Hindu Mars - 39 

2. Sacae, from Sacya, a name of Budha - - 40 

3. Bryges, from Brighu, a name of Siva - - ib. 

4. Cushites, from Kisa, the Sun, Sanskrit - - 41 

5. Budii and Budini, from Budha - - - 42 

6. Suevi, from Siva - - - - 43 

7. Mahatijah — Scythian Shrine of Mars — Roman 

Kegia - - - - - - 44 

6. Habits. 

1. Fars — Pharash — Pharas — The Persians - 45 

2. Hamaxobii, a people living in waggons. There 

could hardly be said to be any settled Geography 

as long as Nations continued in a nomadic state - 47 

CHAP. HI. 

ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE OPERATION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF POPU- 
LATION, THE PRIMARY AND STILL ACTIVE CAUSE OF THE DIS- 
PERSION OF MANKIND. 

21. Theory of Bailly. In direct opposition to all the Me- 

teorological facts we are acquainted with - - 48 

22. The populous North. — Slow progress of Political 

Economy - - - - _ - 49 

23. Earliest seats of the Human Race — Egypt — Hin- 

dustan - - - - - - 50 

24. Malthus's Essay on the Principle of Population vindi- 

cated in three propositions - - - 51 

25. The fundamental Law of the Principle of Population 

establishes a moral necessity that the world shall be 
fully peopled in a long succession of ages - - 53 



X CONTENTS. 

Page 

26. Terra del Fuego — North American Indians — Tartary 

— Arabia — Africa — Hindustan, Syria, and Persia 

— China - - - - - -54 

27. Mode in which the amount of Population is limited by 

the supply of Food - - - ' - 55 

28. The invariable operation of the Law of Population is, 

either to oblige man to cover a larger space of ground, 

or to force him upwards in the scale of civilization - 58 

29. Reasons for believing that the North of Asia was 

peopled from the South, and Europe from Asiatic 
Scandinavia - - - - - 59 

30. Operation of the Principle of Population - - 61 

31. Mode in which the analogy between the growth of 

Individuals and Nations differs — Most Nations ap- 
pear to be fated never to attain maturity - - 62 

32. Comparatively small proportion of the Population of 

England engaged in Agricultural Labour - -65 

33. Evils arising from any interference with the Wages of 

Labour on the part of the Government - -66 

34. Circumstances which tend to deteriorate the condition 

of the Labourer — Enormous Taxation — Tithes — 
The Irish Church Establishment — The Corn Laws 69 

35. Application of the Principle of Population to the ear- 

liest Emigrations of Mankind - - - 72 

36. Date of the first peopling of Scythia, or Scandinavia — 

Progress of the Arabic Race - ' - - 73 

37. Progress of the Persic Race - - - - 75 

38. Progress of the Hindu Race - - - - 76 
Analysis of Scythian "Words mentioned by Herodotus 77 

CHAP. IV. 

ON THE CELT^, AND THE CELTIC LANGUAGE. 

39. Attempt to trace the Progress of the Scythians in 

Europe - - - - - - 81 

40. General Arrangement of the European Languages - ib, 

41. Estimate of the Population of Thrace by Thucydides, 

Herodotus, and Pausanias — Inveterate and con- 
tinually repeated error on the subject of Population 83 



CONTENTS. XI 

Page 

42. The Celtae first mentioned by Herodotus — Prodigious 

extent of their country, according to Plutarch - 85 

43. The Scythae in their western progress appear to have 

been known to the Greek writers as Celtse - 87 

44. The Cimmerii of Homer — The Argippasi of Herodotus 

— The Cimmerian Chersonesus, and Bosphorus — 

Crim-Tartary - - - - - 88 

45. Probable mistake of Strabo with respect to the Cim- 

merian and Cimbric Chersonesus - - - 89 

46. Account of the Celt^ and their Country, by Diodorus. 

He agrees in substance with Plutarch - - 91 

47. The Gauls and Germans essentially the same people, 

both being Celtas - - - - - 93 

48. Admission of Caesar — Account of Strabo - - 94 

49. Probable Etymology of Germans - - - 95 

50. Fundamental error of Pinkerton with regard to the 

Celtse - - - - - - 96 

51. Short Account of the Celtic Language - - 100 
List of Celtic Words, with their Analogies - - 101 

CHAP. V. 

ON THE SAUROMAT.(E, OR SARMATIANS, AND THE SLAVONIC 
LANGUAGE. 

52. The Sauromatae of Herodotus — Their Locality - 107 

53. Division of Asia by the Greek Geographers - - 108 

54. The Rhoxolani — Ultima Thule - - - 109 

55. The Bastarnae, and the North of Europe - - ib. 

56. Little known about the Sarmatians independently of 

the Scythians - - - - - 110 

57. The Peucinians, the Venedians, and Fennians - ib. 

58. The Sarmatians mercenaries — ThelazygesandRhoxo- 

lanians - - - - - -111 

59. Slavonic Language and Grammar - - - 1 12 

60. Translations from the Scriptures - - 113 

61. Liturgy and Chronicles - _ - ib. 

62. Bible — Its various Editions - - 114 

63. Alphabet - - - - - 115 

64. Declension of Substantives - - - - 1 16 



Xll CONTENTS. 

Page 

65. Conjugation of Verbs - - - - 116 
Pronouns Personal and Possessive, Verb Substantive, 

Cardinal Numbers, and Words denoting Affinity - 117 
List of Slavonic Words and their Analogies - - 119 

66. Speculations as to the Formation of the different Per- 

sons of the Verb - - - - - 124 



CHAP. VI. 

ON THE SIASSA-GET^, GET^, SITSIANS, M^SO-GOTHS, OR GOTHS. 

67. Account of Diodorus of the Origin of the Scythians — 

The Palusians and Napesians — The Sacae, the Ari- 

maspii, the Massa-Getse - - - - 127 

68. The Massa-Gretae of Herodotus - - - 128 

69. The Mysians — The Getse of Thucydides - - 129 

70. Identity of the Mysi and the Maesi - - - i^. 

71. Original seat of the MaBso- Goths - - - 130 

72. M^so- Gothic Translation of the Bible - -132 

73. Discovery and Fate of the Manuscript - - 133 

CHAP. vn. 

ON THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS OF GREECE — THE PELASGI. 

74. Point of view in which we are more favourably situated 

than the Greeks and Romans for illustrating the 
Antiquities of Nations - - - - 136 

75. lapetus — Atlas — Prometheus — Obscurity of the 

Fables connected with him — The Etymology of his 
name Sanskrit — Prometheus the Sun, the earliest 
God of Mankind, and has much in common with the 
benevolent Jupiter of the Greeks and Romans - 138 

76. Prometheus, King of the Scythae — Deucalion a Scy- 

thian — Analysis of Xuthus into Skuthus — The 
Greek account of their own Origin and Language 
mere Mythology - - - - -141 

77. The Pelasgus of -^schylus — Pelasgia — Apia - ib. 



CONTENTS. Xlll 

Page 

78. The Pelasgi of Homer — Their Larissa apparently a 

fabulous city — Inconsistency of Homer with respect 

to the Thracians - - - - - 143 

79. Wide and indefinite meaning of the term Pelasgi - ib. 

80. Herodotus's account of the Pelasgi, and their Language 144 

81. Strabo's Account — The Pelargi at Athens - - 147 

82. Marsh's Horse Pelasgicse - - -- - 149 

83. The Antiquities of Greece can never be satisfactorily 

explained from sources purely Greek. — We must 
have recourse to Asia for a clue to the mystery of 
the Pelasgi, or Pelargi, whom we trace in various 
languages under the name of Storks, or one of the 
species of Birds arranged under the genus Ardea - 150 

84. Asiatic Scandinavia — Homonymy, or Phonetic Types 

— Mode in which the Birds of the genus Ardea 
represented a nomadic or migratory people - 151 

1. Scanda, the son of Siva — Scandha, a Heron 

(Sanskrit) - - - - - ib, 

2. Kilan, a Heron — Gilan, the name of a Tribe be- 

tween the Euxine and the Caspian (Persic) - 154 

3. Laylak (Arabic), a Stork — The Leleges, i. e. Storks, 

or a migratory, pastoral people - - 155 

4. Pelargos (Greek), a Stork — The Pelargoi, or Pe- 

lasgi, i. e. Storks, a migratory, pastoral people - 156 

5. Gar an, Celtic ; Geranos, Greek ; Cran, Saxon ; 

(Scythic?) a Crane — Cranai an ancient name of 
the Athenians, attesting their Pelasgic or Pelargic 
origin ------ 158 

6. Ciconia (Latin), a Stork — Cicones, or Ciconians, 

i. e. Storks, a migratory, pastoral, Thracian 
people - - - - - ib. 

7. Grus (Latin), a Crane — Gruchis, obsolete form of 

the word from the former Graios, and the latter 
Graikos, a Greek - - - - 159 

8. Chasidah (Hebrew), a Stork, or Heron — Chasdim, 

i. e. Storks — Scythians, a northern pastoral 
people ----- 160 

9. Ardea (Latin), a Heron — Ardea, the Metropolis of 

Turnus ... - - 161 






' J^ 



V- 



XIV CONTENTS. 

Page 

85. The Greek Language may receive illustrations from 

the Sanskrit - - - - -161 

86. The Sanskrit words Labh and Lambhi — The Syriac 

Ano — The Persic word Men — The Chinese word 
Men - - - - - - 162 

87. List of Sanskrit Words, with their Analogies in Greek 165 

CHAP. vnL 

ON THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS OF ITALY AND SICILY. 

88. The Ancient Names of Italy pure Mythology — Latium 

— Ausonia — Sicania — Hesperia — QEnotria — 
Italia - - » - - - 170 

1. CEnotrus — QEnotria and the CEnotrians - - 172 

2. Italus — Italia and the Italians - - - ih. 

3. Chiun — Chaonia and the Chaonians - - 173 

4. Lito and Latinus — Latium and the Latins - ih. 

5. -^neas and the Trojans — Dardanus, the founder 

ofDardania - - - - - 174 

89. The Lydians, or Tyrrhenians — Rus, the son of Japhet 175 

90. Strabo's account of the Tyrrhenians, and their Leader 176 

91. Tyrrhenus, the son of Hercules — Tyrrhenus, the son 

of Telephus — Xanthus, the Lydian — Hellanicus, 
the Lesbian — Asserts that the Tyrrhenians were 
Pelasgi - - - - - - 177 

92. Analysis of an important passage of Dionysius of 

Halicarnassus - - - - - 179 

1. Tyrrhenia. 

93. The Tyrrhenians, a Thracian people, according to He- 

rodotus, while Thucydides asserts that the Thracian 
Pelasgi were the descendants of those Tyrrhenians 
who formerly inhabited Lemnos and Athens — Cres- 
tona in Herodotus is Grestona in Thucydides - 180 

94. Herodotus misquoted both by Dionysius and Spelman 

— General Conclusion - - - - 183 



'>• 



'^ 



CONTENTS. XV 

2. Lydia. 

Page 

95. Europe peopled from Asia — The Ligyes of Herodotus 

and Strabo — The Lygians of Tacitus — Origin of 
the Italian Lydians - - - - 184 

3. Cimmeria. 

96. The existence of a Cimmeria in Italy doubtful - 187 

97. Tuisco, a name of Pluto, or Jupiter Stygius - - 189 

98. Tuscans from Tuisco, and Tyrrhenians from Taranis 192 

99. Asiatic names of various people — Chatae, Sasones, 

Syebi, Tectosaces, and lot^ - - - 193 

4. Sicily. 

100. Sicily from Seculum, a name of Chronus or Saturn - 194 

101. Sicaniafrom Ciconia (Latin), a Stork, probably iden- 

tical with the Sigynse of Herodotus - - ib, 

102. The Sicani of Thucydides, an Iberian people; pro- 

bably Iberia in Asia, and his Ligyes, the Ligyes of 
Herodotus - - - - - 195 

103. The Siceli of Dionysius of Halicarnassus - - 197 

104. The Aborigines and Aberrigines - - - 198 

105. The Siceli formerly Oenotri, and the Oenotri them- 

selves known by two earlier names - - 199 

106. Period of the emigration of the Siceli from Italy - 200 

107. Summary — List of Sanskrit Words, with their Ana- 

logies in Latin - - - - - 201 

CHAP. IX. 

ON THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS OP GREAT BRITAIN AND 
IRELAND. 

108. The origin of most nations lost in obscurity - 207 

109. Great Britain has attracted the notice of Tacitus — 

According to him. South Wales peopled from 
Spain - - - - - - ib. 

110. Ireland probably colonized by the Milesians, a people 

also of the North of Spain - - . 209 

111. Mode in which Spain itself was successively peopled 210 



XVI CONTENTS. 

Page 

112. Strabo's account of the Gallicians, evidently erroneous 

so far as regards their Religion - - - 211 

113. The Cassiterides — Their number, position, and ety- 

mology ------ 212 

114. Etymology of Cornwall, Wales, and Albion - 214 

115. Diodorus's account of Britain „ - - 215 

116. Cassar's account of Britain - - - - 218 

117. Earliest names of the great divisions of England - 221 

118. Ireland — its oldest names and inhabitants - - 223 

119. Language of the Ancient Irish - - - 225 

120. Their Religion, Sabaism, or Sun-worship — Sanskrit 

Words - - - - - - 226 



CHAP. X. 

ON ETYMOLOGY IN GENERAL. 

121. No good Dictionary can be written if the Author has 

adopted a Theory of Language altogether un- 
founded — Dr. Alexander Murray - - 228 

122. Mr. Webster's Dictionary of the English Language - 230 

123. Impressions on the Organs of Sense the foundation 

of all human knowledge — Analogy between the 
labours of the Chymist and the Etymologist — 
Broad line of distinction between Hieroglyphical 
and Alphabetical Writing - - - 232 

124. Various Etymologies proposed by Mr. Webster - 236 

125. Remarks on, Objections to, and Substitutes for them 

— Illustrations of what he denominates the Root Lb 237 

126. Formation of the Latin Diligo, and the Greek Bou- 

lomai ------ 240 

127. Etymology of the words Root and Obedient - 241 

128. Mode in which the Primary Roots have been altered 

and disguised — The bulk of what are called the 
Words of almost every existing Language really 
Sentences - _ - - - 242 

129. Reasons why the efforts of the Greeks and Romans 

in Etymology were so unsuccessful - 243 



CONTENTS. XVll 



130. Words which possess a character of Universality — 

Jin (Chinese), and Jan (Sanskrit), a man - 244 

131. Hiat (Arabic), life, a living creature — Jebusite — 

Dryad and Druid — Nereid — Oread — Veritas - 245 

132. Formation and Primary Signification of the Latin 

word Hilaritas - - - - - 247 

133. Ee, Sahidic, and Er, Coptic - - - 248 

134. Tiud (Slavonic), the origin of the Latin Tudo in 

composition — Hilaritas, and Hilaritudo - - 249 

135. Etymology may ultimately attain so much certainty 

as to enable us to correct the anomalies of the Root 
itself - - - - ^ - 250 

136. Application of the preceding Illustrations - - 253 



CHAP. XL 

ON THE SOURCES OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE — ENGLISH 
WORDS — ENGLISH PARTICLES. 

137. Mr. Webster's view of the composition of the English 

Language _ _ . - - 255 

138. Comprehensive as it is, it is still deficient. It con- 

tains no mention of the Slavonic, and we must 
ascend to the formation of the Celtic - -256 

*138. Advantage of reverting to the Asiatic Roots — In 

many instances the extremes meet - - 258 

139. List of English Words derived from the Sanskrit - 259 

140. Other Sanskrit Etymologies ~ A and An, privative — 

Un, privative ----- 264 

141. The more proximate Sources of the English Language 

— The Maeso- Gothic — Its Grammar and Words - 266 

142. English Particles — Their barbarous treatment - 272 

143. Remarks of Mr. Locke _ - - . H^, 

144. Enough - - - - - "273 

145. Away - - - - - - 277 

146. Now 279 

147. While - • 283 



XVm CONTENTS. 



CHAP. XII. 



GENIUS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE — ITS CLOSE ANALOGY 

WITH THE PERSIC STRUCT ORE OF ENGLISH SENTENCES — 

M^SO-GOTHIC SENTENCES — ANGLO-SAXON SENTENCES THE 

ENGLISH THE ELDEST DAUGHTER OF THE M^SO-GOTHIC. 

Page 

148. Tendency of Nature to repetition in her operations 

and productions — The Great Year of the Greeks 286 

149. Character of the Ancient Persians, by Herodotus - 287 

150. . of the Ancient Germans, by Tacitus - 288 

151. Persic Grammar - - - - - 289 

1 52. Cases of Nouns - - - - - ib. 

153. Singular and Plural Numbers - - - 290 

154. Persian Adjectives ----- 291 

155. Verbs ib, 

156. Leading featui'es of resemblance between the Persic 

and the English Languages _ - - 292 

157. The Gender of Nouns — Some remarkable Anomalies 293 

158. Mode in which it influences the collocation of Words 

in a Sentence ... - - 295 

159. Painting and Poetry — The range of the latter in- 

comparably more wide and various - - 296 

1 60. The greater liberty of the Greeks and Romans in the 

collocation of words fully counterbalanced by cor- 
respondent disadvantages - _ - 297 

161 . General connection between the greater or less facility 

of a Language, and the advancement of Knowledge 299 

162. An undue attention to the minutise of any Language 

will probably prevent an intimate and comprehen- 
sive acquaintance with the Literature of that Lan- 
guage ------ 301 

163. Masso-Gothic Sentences from the Gospels of Ulphilas 302 

164. Anglo-Saxon Sentences from the Ode on the Victory 

of Athelstan - - - - - 305 

165. Progress of the English Language - - -306 



CONTENTS. XIX 



CHAP. xni. 

ON THE GENIUS OF THE LANGUAGES OF ASIA AS COMPARED 
WITH THOSE OF EUROPE. 

Page 

166. Asiatic Eloquence as contrasted with European — 

Asiatic Poetry — Radical difference of Taste - 307 

167. Sir William Jones — The services he performed for 

Oriental Literature — Character of his Mind and 
Works - - - - - - 308 

168. Judicious remarks of a Turkish Author - - 309 

169. Oriental Poetry defended by a reference to Climate 

and Modes of Life - - - - 310 

170. Passages from an Oriental Historian, from Smollett's 

History of England, and Lord Bolingbroke's Re- 
marks on the History of England compared - 311 

171. Extracts from the Life of Nadir Shah, a Persic work 313 

172. Passage from the Arabic of Arabshah's Life of Tamer- 

lane - - ■ - - - 314 

173. Descriptions of Nature may very properly enter into 

Historical Compositions — Listanced in Tacitus's 
account of the Murder of Agrippina - - 315 

1 74. And even many of the Ornaments of Poetry — Pro- 

phetic Melancholy — Parallel Passages from Tacitus 
and Shakspeare - - - - -317 

175. Passage from Hafiz compared with one from Pope - 319 

176. Languages appear to become less harsh and figurative 

with the progress of Civilization - - 321 

177. Poverty of the Hebrew — An Orientalism in Pindar 322 

178. The mixture of People and Languages in the vast 

regions of Scythia appears to have produced a race 
physically and intellectually superior to their pro- 
genitors - - - o. _ - 324 

179. All the Languages, both of Ancient and Modern 

Europe, derived from the Scythic - - 326 

180. Origin and Affinities of the leading European Lan- 

guages - - - - - - 329 

181. Scythic Words from Herodotus - - - 330 

182. Real Origin and Etymology of the Greek Dialects - 331 



XX CONTENTS. 

■^ Page 

.^ 183. Probable future fate of the World — Judging from 

past experience and present appearances it is likely 
that all the inferior Races will be annihilated by, 
or absorbed in, the Caucasian - - - 334 

184. Exceptions to the superiority of the European or Scy- 

thic Race over the unmixed Asiatic Races - 339 

185. Probable fortune of the English Language — Likely 

to be essentially different from that of the Sanskrit, 
the Greek, and the Latin — Will probably be spoken 
by one third of the Human Race — Unbounded 
career opened to the great men of England — 
Adam Smith — Malthus — Reynolds — Fox — 
Shakspeare ----- 340 

i^r^ Note. — Dissertation on the different names of the Ionic 

"^ Race - - - ^ - - 344 



.H 



ERRATA. 

Page 22. line 17. for "dwelling-place," read "dwelling, place." 
36. line 3. for " Ulphilus," read " Ulphilas.*' 
71. line 19. after "sole," dele comma. 
117. line 17. for " On, Ille," read " On, Illius." 
V 151. line 1. after " Asiatic," dele period and insert comma. 

,^ ' 161. line 3. from bottom, after " Greece," dele comma and insert semi- 

colon. 
166. col. 2. line 8. for " earth, body," read " earth-body." 

180. line 5. from bottom, for "4. Tuscany," read "4. Sicily." 

181. line 9. for " Thessaliatis," read " Thessaliotis." 
238. line 1 1. from bottom, for " yood," read '• ye." 

249. line 5. from bottom, for " Naturales," read " Naturalis."- 
267. line 8. for "declination," read "declension." 
279. line 7. for " plot az^ay," read "plot, away" 
282. line 11. for " Nune," read " Nunc." 
292. line 20. for " inrm," read " inform." 
338. line 9. from bottom, for " invasion," read "invasions." 
-"^ i 348. line 13. for " ^gialos," read " Aigialos." 



ON 

THE ORIGIN AND RAMIFICATIONS 

OF THE 

ET^GL[8H LAI^GUAGE. 



CHAPTEK I. 



ON THE GENEALOGICAL ORIGIN OF THE NAMES OF 
TRIBES AND NATIONS. 

1. Whoever has stood at the fountain-head of a 
noble river, and contemplated its inconsiderable 
origin, must have felt disposed to wonder at its 
subsequent magnitude and celebrity, and to inquire 
what was the secret quality it possessed, which had 
made its fortune so different from that of the nu- 
merous springs in its vicinity, from which it did 
not differ in appearance ; and with some such emo- 
tions, could he have looked into futurity, would 
Tacitus probably have written the following sen- 
tence*: — "Contra Longobardos paucitas nobiUtat: 

* *' The Longobards exhibit a contrast to the people last de- 
scribed. Their dignity is derived from the paucity of their 
numbers. Surrounded as they are by great and powerful 
nations, they live independent, owing their security, not to mean 
compliances, but to that warlike spirit with which they en- 

B 



Z GENEALOGICAL ORIGIN OF THE 

plurimis ac valentissimis nationibus cincti non per 
obsequium, sed prseliis et periclitando tuti sunt. 
Reudigini deinde, et Aviones et Angli^ et Yarini, 
et Eudoses, et Suardones, et Nuithones fluminibus 
aut sylvis muniuntur: nee quidquam notabile in 
singulis, nisi quod in commune Herthum, id est, 
Terram matrem colunt, eamque intervenire rebus 
hominum, invebi populis arbitrantur." - — Taciti 
Germania^ c. 40. 

2. Gould tbis most profound of the Roman prose 
writers, and perhaps greatest of all historians, have 
foreseen that these obscure Angli were destined in a 
distant age to revive literature and the arts, which 
even at the period when he wrote were declining, 
to compete with Cicero in eloquence, and Virgil in 
poetry, to vie with the Romans themselves in their 
enthusiastic attachment to hberty, and to establish 
on a firm basis, and transmit unimpaired from ge- 
neration to generation, a scheme of equal govern- 
ment, of which neither the Greeks nor Romans had 
been able to form even a conception, with what 
delight would his imagination have dwelt on these 
visions of glory ! for that we do live under such a 

counter danger. To these succeed in regular order the Reu- 
diginians, the Aviones, Angles, and Varinians — the Eudocians, 
Nuithones, and Suardonians, all defended by rivers or em- 
bosomed in forests. In these several tribes there is nothing 
that invites attention, except that they all agree to worship the 
goddess Earth, or, as they call her, Herth, whom they consider 
as the common mother of all. This divinity, according to their 
notion, interposes in human affairs, and at times visits the 
several nations of tiye globe." — Murphy's Tacitus. 



NAMES OF TRIBES AND NATIONS. 6 

government hardly any man in his sober and dis- 
passionate moments will be disposed to deny. To 
ascertain all the causes which must co-operate to 
carry civil society from a savage state to the last 
stage of luxury, knowledge, and refinement, — to in- 
vestigate the relative importance of each, and mark 
their mutual operation and influence, — to say why 
the aborigines of North America never advanced 
beyond the condition of hunters and fishers, — why 
the vast regions of ancient Scythia and modern 
Tartary have always been possessed by tribes in a 
nomadic or shepherd state, — why the civilization of 
Asia, when at the highest, was far inferior to that 
of ancient Greece or Italy, and of Grermany, France, 
and England, are questions which political philo- 
sophy as yet has vainly attempted to answer, in 
spite of all the efforts of Plato and Aristotle, of 
Cicero and Tacitus, in ancient, and of the equally 
great names and incomparably more successful ex- 
ertions of Machiavel and Montesquieu, of Smith and 
Malthus, in more modern times. In the present 
work I can merely glance at such questions, and 
must be content to limit my labours to the more 
narrow but still sufficiently difficult inquiry as to 
the origin and formation of the English language, 
connected as the latter is in a greater or less degree 
with almost all those of modern Europe. 

3. It has been observed more than once that per- 
haps as many investigations have failed from being 
too profound as from being too superficial, and that 
the labours of many philosophers have been ren- 

B 2 



4 GENEALOGICAL ORIGIN OF THE 

dered abortive from their persisting in diving to the 
bottom for that which floated on the surface, and was 
distinctly visible to all eyes but their own. This, 
however, has certainly not been the case with respect 
to inquiries into the origin and formation of the 
English language. Home Tooke, incomparably the 
most acute, if not the most learned of all those who 
have hitherto directed their attention to the subject, 
appears to be of opinion that it is in vain to look 
beyond the Anglo-Saxon, or at farthest the Mseso- 
Gothic, for " the wells of English, pure and un de- 
filed ; " and that if we do not discover them within 
those limits, the search must be abandoned as alto- 
gether hopeless. My limited experience, however, 
has convinced me that so far from stopping short 
with the Anglo-Saxons and Msbso- Goths, or even 
with the Greeks and Romans, the philologist must 
make an effort, " ultra pergere," and with more 
than the ambition which the satirist ascribes to the 
very greatest of soldiers continue to exclaim, — 
" actum nihil est," as long as any ancient language 
remains uninvestigated, or any modern country 
unexplored. Home Tooke has censured the English 
etymologists who preceded him for not being as 
familiarly acquainted with the Anglo-Saxon, Maeso- 
Gothic, and northern languages, as they were with 
the Greek and Latin. If he had remembered that 
both the Angles and Saxons, our immediate ances- 
tors, were German tribes, and called to mind the 
numerous analogies positively asserted to exist be- 
tween the languages of Germany and Persia, by 



NAMES OF TRIBES AND NATIONS. 

Grotius and Leibnitz, two of the greatest names in 
modern literature, — if he had recollected that the 
Maeso-Goths might be traced to the East, and the 
high degree of probability, amounting almost to 
certainty, that Europe generally was peopled from 
Asia, he would have been convinced that all has 
not been done for the illustration of the languages 
of the former continent, so long as the oldest 
written tongues of the latter remain unexamined. 
If he had reflected farther, that even Asia itself 
does not appear to have been the earliest seat of 
civilization, judging from the remains of art ; that 
there is a preponderance of evidence in favour of 
the banks of the Nile ; that Egypt sent out numer- 
ous colonies ; that one of the most close observers 
and accurate reporters of antiquity, Herodotus, 
heard the same language spoken in Colchis ^vhich 
he had previously heard in Egypt ; and that Colchis 
is very near the Euxine, from the banks of which 
we trace those countless myriads, beneath whose 
efforts the mighty fabric of the Roman empire at 
length sunk, he would have been convinced that to 
do full justice to the history of the formation of the 
English tongue, and to aiFord it all the illustration 
it is susceptible of receiving from a dictionary, to 
the languages of ancient Europe must be added an 
acquaintance with those of ancient Asia, and that 
that of Egypt could not be safely neglected, as it 
had probably exercised a direct influence on both, 
and that to no inconsiderable extent. 

4. Pinkerton in his little work, entitled ^' A 

B 3 



b GENEALOGICAL OEIGIN OF THE 

Dissertation on the Origin and Progress of the 
Scythians or Goths/' which, in a very limited com- 
pass, exhibits merits of the highest class counter- 
balanced by defects almost as great, in which 
unbounded learning and unwearied research, more 
than would have sufficed for composing a folio 
volume, are rendered altogether of no avail, from 
his inveterate prejudices and angry passions, — and 
in the course of which he is generally most dogma- 
tical when he is most erroneous, remarks very truly 
in connection with the subject of this chapter, — - 
" It was the custom of the Greeks always to derive 
names of nations from ancient kings and chiefs. 
This was easy etymology and cost nothing, yet cost 
as much as etymology of names is worth. Thus 
the Lydians were from Lydus, the Mysians from 
Mysus, the Scythians from Scythes, the Celts from 
Celtes, &c. &c., and the Aborigines of the south- 
west shore of Italy, (Enotrians, from (Enotrus, 
who led them from Arcadia, and those of the east^ 
Peuketii, from Peuketius, his brother" (page 157.), 
Until my attention was drawn to the subject by 
the above passage I was hardly aware of the extent 
to which the system had been carried, as it has 
been attempted to account in this way, not only for 
the names of the three continents of the ancient 
world, but for all the subdivisions, and even for the 
principal cities contained in each. Asia was the 
daughter of Oceanus, the wife of lapetus, and the 
mother of Prometheus, Epimetheus, Atlas, and 
' Menoetius. Libya, the ancient name of Africa, was 



NAMES OF TRIBES AND NATIONS. 7 

the daughter of Epaphus and Cassiopea, who be- 
came the mother of Agenor and Belus by Neptune. 
Europe derives its name from Europa, the daughter 
of Agenor, so that mythologically she is younger 
than her two sisters ; a fact not so certain as that the 
latter quarter of the world was peopled later than 
Asia. From the circumstance of there being only 
three continents, or great divisions of the earth, 
known to the ancients, perhaps proceeded the dis- 
position to arrange the progenitors of mankind into 
triads, unless my reader should be of opinion that 
the division of the universe between the three 
children of Saturn, as related in the mythology of 
the Greeks, has exerted a more powerful influence. 
Noah and his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japhet, 
are famihar to every reader of Scripture, and we 
find them, with very little variation, in the sacred 
books of the Hindus. We are informed that the 
royal patriarch Satyavrata, for such is his character 
in the Purans, Avas particularly fond of Japati, to 
whom he gave all the regions to the north of the 
Himalaya, or Snowy Mountains, which extend from 
sea to sea, and of which Caucasus is part. To 
Sharma he allotted the country to the south of 
those mountains, while he cursed Charma. (Asiatic 
Researches, vol. iii. p. 312.) If we analyse Japati 
we shall find that Ja or Jah, in Sanskrit, is a name 
both of Siva and Vishnu, while Pati signifies Lord. 
The Hindu Japati appears to be the prototype of 
the Greek lapetus ; and it will be recollected that 
lapetus was the father of Prometheus, Prometheus 

B 4 



O GENEALOGICAL ORIGIN OE THE 

of Deucalion, and Deucalion of Hellen, from whom 
all the Greek mythologists deduce the descent of 
their nation. Pindar says, — 

In tales of ancient lore, 'tis said 

O'er earth the whelming waters spread, 

Urg'd all their congregated force. 

But Jove's high will, his headlong course 

Bade the usurping foe restrain. 

And sink absorb'd the refluent main, ' 

From them your sires, the warlike race 

Of old lapetus, descend ; 

Whose glorious deeds the brightest grace 

To Saturn their forefather lend ; 

And hence a race of native kings 

In regular succession springs. 

WheelrigMs Pindar^ 9th Olympic Ode. 

If the etymology of Japati is Sanskrit we may 
fairly presume that Japati spoke Sanskrit, and he is 
said to have carried it to the north of the Himalaya 
Mountains into Scythia, Tartary, or Scandinavia.* 
We have discovered a language^ and as one of the 
innumerable names of Siva is Calah, or Time, 
and one of the names of Saturn, Chronos, or Time, 
Siva, Saturn, Japati, and lapetus appear to be per- 
fectly identical, and one and the same person or 
deity. 

5. The family of the Scripture Japhet appears to 

* Sir William Jones, describing the Tibetians, says, " Their 
characters are apparently Indian, but their language has now 
the disadvantage of being written with more letters than are 
ever pronounced ; for although it was anciently Sanskrit, and 
polysyllabic, it seems at present, from the influence of Chi- 
nese manners, to consist of monosyllables." — Works, vol. iii. 
p. 175. 



NAMES OF TRIBES AND NATIONS. ^ 

have been a very large one ; indeed, it was enlarged 
indefinitely according to circumstances, for in the 
exact degree that there arose nations whose origin 
was to be accounted for, were his sons multiplied 
and named accordingly. The Chinese, Turks, Tar- 
tars, and Mongols must all have had a beginning, 
and therefore the Oriental writers supply Japhet 
with four sons, whom the European reader never 
heard of — Chin, Turc, Tatar or Tartar, and Mongol 
(Jones, vol. iii. page 79.). This is the account in 
the Koran, but that of the Turks differs from it 
considerably. According to them their ancestor, 
Turk, was the son of Japhet ; the fourth in descent 
from him was Alingeh Khan, and he had two sons, 
Tatar and Mongol, from whom the tribes which 
they governed derived their names. The eighth 
descendant of Turk was Oghuz, whose name would 
hardly be worth mentioning but that he is the pro- 
totype of the Greek Ogyges. It is deserving of 
notice, however, that Oghuz had six sons, and there 
is certainly some connection between himself and 
progeny, and the division of time by the Hindus 
into weeks of seven days. Indeed the name of his 
eldest son was Giun, the Sun, and of his second Ai, 
the Moon, corresponding both with the Hindu and 
our own Sunday and Monday. 

6. According to Herodotus, the Scythians re- 
ferred their origin to Targitaus, the son of Jupiter, 
by a daughter of the river Borysthenes. He had 
three sons, Lipoxais, Arpoxais, and Colaxais; but 
they appear to have been less successful than 



10 GENEALOGICAL OEIGIN OF THE 

most of their contemporaries in transmitting and 
immortalizing their names. The account of the 
Greeks themselves, however, represents the Scy- 
thians as the descendants of Scytha, the son of 
Hercules, by a most extraordinary female, who was 
half woman and half serpent. As Hercules, the son 
of Alcmena, was a Greek we ought to find the Scy- 
thians speaking Greek; but the etymology of the 
word Hercules is Sanskrit, from Heri, lord, and 
Gala, time, a name of the sun ; and in the course 
of this work we shall see reason for believing that 
the Sanskrit was spoken at any rate, perhaps that 
it predominated in these high northern latitudes. 
But according to Cicero there were six personages 
of the name of Hercules, the fifth of whom was born 
in India, and named Belus, and I should select him 
as the progenitor of the Scythians. According to 
Herodotus the Persians were the descendants of 
Perses, the son of Perseus. In Hebrew, and pro- 
bably in other Oriental languages, the word Pharash 
signifies a horseman ; and I am much mistaken if 
the word Persian was not primarily descriptive of 
a nation of Nomades, who consisted chiefly of 
cavalry, and made war on horseback. I even be- 
lieve that this etymology was known to Hesiod, 
who, in his " Shield of Hercules," says. 

There was the horseman^ fair-hair'd Danae's son, 
Perseus. 

The ancient name of the Medes, according to Hero- 
dotus, was Arii, which they abandoned in honour 
of Medus, the son of Medea. In like manner Ar- 



NAMES OF TRIBES AND NATIONS, 11 

menia received its name from Armenus, who was 
one of the Argonauts, and of Thessalian origin. 

7. One of the most singular circumstances in 
connection with the earliest name of Lydia, of 
Phrygia, and perhaps of Asia Minor, is the wide 
extension of the same tradition under the same, or 
nearly similar names, opening a glimpse of one great 
people and one language throughout great part of 
the world, and apparently describing the universal 
figurative empire of the sun, the earliest God of the 
human race. First in India we have Menu, the 
celebrated legislator, whose code has been translated 
by Sir William Jones. Its date ascends far beyond 
the dawn of authentic history, and is lost in the 
darkness of mythology; but we are informed in 
Wilson's Sanskrit Dictionary that though some 
accounts represent Menu as the son of Brahma, 
others make him to be an incarnation or Avatar of 
Brahma himself. Diodorus has a few words to say 
of an ancient king, Meon, who formerly reigned 
over both Phrygia and Lydia. Herodotus men- 
tions in almost as few words, but more definite, a 
king. Manes, the son of Jupiter and Tellus, who 
reigned over and gave his name to Mseonia, a term 
which at an early period appears to have included 
both Lydia and Phrygia, and how much more it is 
difiicult to say. Minos, the legislator of Crete, is 
still more palpably a mere echo of the Indian Menu ; 
and some mythologists, instead of describing Minos 
as the son of Jupiter, represent it as a name of 
Jupiter himself. Menes is described as the founder 



12 GENEALOGICAL ORIGIN OF THE 

of the Egyptian monarcliy, and the first who reigned 
in that country after the Gods, and chronologists 
identify him with the Misraim of Scripture, the son 
of Ham, who is also identified by them with the 
Jupiter Hammon of the Greeks. In the Old Testa- 
ment we find a place mentioned under the name of 
Baal-Meon, and Beth Baal-Meon, or the House of 
Baal-Meon ; and Tacitus mentions a god Mannus, 
the son of Tuisto, or Tuisco. The probable ety- 
mology of Meon is Ma, place, and On, the sun, both 
Coptic, the east, and by metonymy the Sun himself. 
Shall we say that we have discovered a trace of the 
existence of a primitive and common language in 
places so widely separated from each other; or as 
there are fourteen Menus or incarnations of the 
Deity in the religious system of the Hindus, divided 
from each other by long intervals of time, shall we 
rather say that the perpetual recurrence of the 
name is a proof of the antiquity and universality 
of the tradition ? 

8. Herodotus informs us that the Carians were 
formerly known by the name of Leleges, and, as a 
matter of course, we meet with a convenient King 
Lelex. The country itself was known by the name 
of Phoenicia, because a Phoenician colony was sup- 
posed to have settled there, but derived its name of 
Caria from King Car, who first invented the augu- 
ries of birds. Their principal city was Halicar- 
nassus, where Jupiter was the chief deity. As the 
Egj^tian Phoenix was a type of the sun, and Khur 
in Persic signifies the sun, I suspect that we have 



NAMES OF TRIBES AND NATIONS. 13 

discovered King Car and the Carians, whose origin 
was very like that of King Meon and the Mgeonians, 
and that the Carian Jupiter was no other than 
Khur, the sun. In one passage Herodotus calls Car 
the brother of Lydus and Mysus, while in another 
he informs us that Lydus, Mysus, and Tyrrhenus 
were the sons of Atys. Unfortunately this historical 
narrative conveys little or no information as to 
language, as we can hardly be said to be in posses- 
sion of one undoubted Lydian, Mysian, or Tyrrhe- 
nian word ; but as Atys appears to be the Persic 
word Atosh, fire, and Car the Persic word Khur, the 
sun, in the absence of all other accounts we may 
fairly presume that Lydus, Mysus, and Tyrrhenus 
spoke the language of their brother and father, 
whatever other languages they may have discovered 
or invented. In one of the fragments of the 
Phryxus, a lost tragedy of Euripides, he names 
Kilix, Phoenix, and Thasos, as the sons of Agenor. 
The first of course gave his name to Cilicia, the 
second to Phoenicia, and the third to the island of 
Thasus ; but the same poet also informs us in an- 
other fragment that Cadmus was one of the sons of 
Agenor, and that, abandoning the city of Sidon, he 
came to the territory of Thebes ; therefore Cadmus 
and Phoenix are one, and merely different names of 
the same person, and that person is the sun — Kdm, 
Hebrew radical letters, the east, or the sun, with 
a Greek termination Cadmus ; and the Egyptian 
Phoenix was certainly the sun, and the miraculous 
account of its demise and resuscitation merely an 



14 GENEALOGICAL ORIGIN OF THE 

Oriental, or poetical description of sunset and sun- 
rising. His sister Europa is merely one of the 
names of the Syrian Astarte, Ashtaroth, or the 
Queen of Heaven, contracted from the Greek word 
Euruopa, wide-seeing, i. e. the moon ; and Agenor 
appears to be a name of Saturn, Chronos, or Eter- 
nity, contracted from A, privative, and Genitor, 
that is, he who had no father, or beginning. My- 
thology makes him the son of Neptune, and Neptune 
is frequently confounded with Oceanus, the father 
of all things. Some accounts make Thasos also the 
son of Neptune. 

9. Every one knows that Lycia received its name 
from Lycus, the son of Pandion, King of Athens. 
If the Lycians were the descendants of Lycus, 
which is the conclusion to which all these genea- 
logical fables point, we are obliged to admit either 
that the Lycians must have spoken Greek, or that 
fifteen centuries before the Christian era the Greek 
language was not formed, and the same remark will 
apply to half the countries of Asia, as we have no 
account of any of them except from the Greeks, 
who have mixed up their own mythology with all. 
According to them Egypt received its name from 
Egyptus, and Greece, or at any rate the Greeks, 
from Danaus, the son of Belus, who himself is said 
to be the son of Osiris. The Greek word Belus 
appears to be formed from the Hebrew Baal, lord, 
almost everywhere in the Old Testament a name of 
the sun ; but we also find a Bali, a god, or demi- 
god, in the mythology of the Hindus ; and, sup- 



NAMES OF TRIBES AND NATIONS. 15 

posing the Greek fable to contain the smallest 
portion of truth, the analogy between the Coptic 
and Greek with the Sanskrit would much rather 
lead us to India for Belus than to any country 
where a Shemitic language was spoken. The 
Greeks, however, preferred tracing their own regu- 
lar descent to Hellen, the son of Deucalion, and his 
three sons (the favourite number which is con- 
tinually repeated), ^olus, Dorus, and Xuthus, the 
latter of whom was the father of Ion ; and as from 
Hellen was derived the generic name of Hellenes, 
^olus, Dorus, and Ion gave denominations to the 
tEoIIc, Doric, and Ionic dialects, or divisions of the 
Greek language. Thrace derived its name from 
Thrax, a son of Mars ; and the Bistones, a Thra- 
cian people, from Biston, another son of Mars. As 
two languages, according to Herodotus (lib. i. 
c. 57.), continued to be spoken in Thrace even 
in his time, we may suspect that the fact was 
commemorated in the name of the Bistones, 
formed from bis (Latin), double, and stoma 
(Greek), mouth, or speech. Livy informs us that 
in the language of Thrace Diana was called Bendis, 
a word which appears to be compounded of the 
Hebrew Ben, child, and Dis, contracted from Dios, 
the genitive of Zeus, that is, child of Jupiter ; and 
that in Macedon Minerva was denominated Alcide, 
which we may confidently pronounce to be formed 
from the Arabic definite article al, the, and Sidah, 
lady, or princess, like Alcides, from al, Sid, and a 
Greek termination. The Cid, the hero of Cor- 
neille's celebrated tragedy, is the same Arabic word 



16 GENEALOGICAL ORIGIN OF THE 

Sid, lord. Italy derived its name from Italus ; 
France its ancient Greek name of Galatia, accord- 
ing to Diodorus, from Galatus, the son of Hercules 
by a Celtic princess, and its modern one from 
Francus, a son of Hector ; while it is equally cer- 
tain that Brutus, a son of iEneas, gave his name to 
Britain. 

10. It would be easy to fill a volume in this way, 
and, in fact, many volumes have been so filled, as 
when the Greeks could not account in any other 
mode for the origin of a nation, tribe, or city, the 
easiest method of cutting the Gordian knot was 
first to suppose that some god, demi-god, or hero of 
that name had existed, and secondly that that 
name had descended to his posterity. Every 
people must of course have had a beginning, and 
the easiest means of accounting for it was by 
assuming that all nations, like individuals, bore the 
name of their progenitors. Unfortunately, like 
almost all contrivances that are very easy, it was at 
the same time very worthless, as a moment's reflec- 
tion will convince us that such a mode of reasoning 
could never lead us one step in the direction of the 
truth, from the simple circumstance that the children 
are in every instance necessarily older than their 
parents. If there had not been such people as 
Carians, Lydians, Mysians, and Tyrrhenians, whose 
origin was to be accounted for, we should never 
have heard a syllable of the entertaining story of 
Herodotus ; and unless there had been countries 
bearing the names of Cilicia, Phoenicia, and Thasus, 
Euripides would never have told us a word about 



k 



NAMES OF TRIBES AND NATIONS. 17 

Kilix, Phoenix, and Thasos. The names of the 
countries are probably in every instance older by 
centuries than the fables which pretend to account 
for them. The Greeks were avowedly ignorant of 
all languages but their own; and, in all cases, 
whatever they wanted in knowledge, they made up 
for by invention. To take a single instance out of 
hundreds that might be adduced: the Asiatics 
called the Mediterranean the Great Sea, or the 
Western Sea, in the original Hebrew* (Deut. xi. 
24.) Hayyam Haacharon^ literally the sea behind, 
supposing a person to be standing with his face 
towards the east (kedem). The Greeks, who could 
make nothing of the etymology of this name, to 
explain it in their own way invented the story of 
Daedalus and his son Icarus, the waxen wings, the 
flight too near the sun, the consequent fall, and the 
permanent name of the Icarian Sea from Icarus. 
On the basis of the word kedem, the east (radical 
letters kdm), they raised a still more vast super- 
structure of fable. They added their own termi- 
nation, and formed Cadmus, the brother of Europa, 
and the founder of Thebes in Boeotia. Cadmus, as 
well as Phoenix and Hercules, was a name of the 
sun; and the terms Cadmeans, Phoenicians, and 
Heraclidae are used so loosely by Greek writers, that 
they convey no definite information, and are nearly 
equivalent to Asiatic, or Oriental, and communicate 
to us the fact that Europe was peopled from the 
East, and very little more. 

• Vide Gibbs' Gesenius, in vocibus Achor and Yam. 



18 INVESTIGATION OF THE ORIGIN OF 



CHAPTER 11. 

AN INVESTIGATION OF THE EEAL CAUSES WHICH GAVE 
ORIGIN TO THE NAMES OF TRIBES AND NATIONS. 

11. As the genealogical system of the Greeks, by 
the instrumentality of which they were so fond of 
accounting for the origin of tribes and nations, has 
evidently no solid foundation, perhaps no foundation 
at all, and as, so far from assisting, it rather con- 
fuses and misleads us in our attempt to ascertain 
the earliest languages of mankind, we are driven by 
necessity to an investigation of the principal causes 
which were operative in giving names to those pri- 
mitive races of mankind, of which mention is made 
in the Greek historians. I must begin by express- 
ing my entire and unalterable conviction, that that 
large class of words denominated by grammarians 
proper names, that is, the epithets of persons and 
places, were all originally significant and descriptive 
of the nature and quality of the objects on which 
they were imposed, and that this fact could never 
have been doubted for a moment, had not the 
Greeks and Eomans despised all languages except 
their own, and succeeded in transmitting to modern 
times a prejudice, for such it most assuredly is, that 
their own languages were so immeasurably superior 
to those of the other nations of mankind, that it is 
in vain to seek in the latter for any thing which we 



THE NAIklES OF TRIBES AND NATIONS. 19 

cannot find in the former. This is so far from being 
true, that before I close this work, I shall demon- 
strate that the Greek and Latin are merely dialects 
of a much older and more widely spoken language, 
to which originally they were in no respect superior, 
and probably never would have been but for the 
single circumstance of having been more cultivated. 

12. The leading circumstances, which appear to 
me to have given names to the great divisions of 
the human race, from the beginning of time to the 
present moment, may be conveniently arranged 
under six general heads, or divisions, and are as 
follows : — 

1. Climate, or the degree of heat and cold. 

2. Locality, chiefly with reference to the latitude, 

or distance from the Pole, 

3. Abode, whether in houses, tents, or waggons. 

4. Food, with reference to that which constituted 

the principal article of subsistence. 

5. Eeligion, or the names of the divinities they 

worshipped. 

6. Habits, with reference to their mode of life, 

and the degree of civilization they had 
attained, whether stationary or erratic, 
whether hunters, shepherds, or agricul- 
turists, whether fighting on foot, on horse- 
back, or in chariots. 

1. Climate, 

13. In this chapter I must take it for granted 
that the genial regions of Southern Asia were the 
earliest seat of the human race, without pretending 

c 2 



20 INVESTIGATION OF THE ORIGIN OF 

to define the precise spot, and that the vast countries 
to the north of Mount Taurus, Mount Caucasus, 
and the great mountain chain of the Himalaya, 
which divides India from Tartary, as far in the 
direction of the Pole as existence is supportable, 
were peopled by that southern race, impelled in a 
northerly direction by the pressure of population 
against the means of subsistence. To take as little 
for granted as possible, however, I shall proceed to 
prove that the Arabic language was in existence at 
the period when the Book of Genesis was written, 
whether that venerable work was the production of 
Moses, or of some author anterior to him. Euphrates 
and Hiddekel (the Tigris), the names of two of the 
four rivers of Paradise, are Arabic words. If we 
open the Hebrew Bible at the fourteenth verse of 
the second chapter of Genesis, that is, the oldest 
portion of perhaps the oldest written composition 
in the world, we find the river Euphrates denomin- 
ated according to the radical letters Phrt, and with 
the vowel points Pherat or Pherath. On turning 
to a Hebrew lexicon, we find the word in its regular 
place as a proper name^ but without any other in- 
formation whatever : on opening the Arabic, how- 
ever, at the radical letters Frat, pronounced by 
the Arabs Furat, we find the first meaning to be 
very fine sweet water ^ and the second, the river Eu- 
phrates. Frat, therefore, primarily was significant ; 
and it is hardly possible to entertain a doubt that 
the Arabic word was the original, and the Hebrew 
the derivative. Europe was peopled from Asia, 
and the primitive language of mankind gradually 



THE NAMES OF TEIBES AND NATIONS. 21 

changed and partially lost. We have seen that 
the word Frat or Furat originally signified, not 
merely water, but very fine sweet water. By 
the time the word reached the earliest Greeks, the 
Pelasgians or JEolians, it had probably lost both its 
adjective meanings of fine, sweet, but retained its 
substantive one of water. When the Greeks there- 
fore prefixed their own adjective Eu (good) to 
Frat, Euphrat signified no more than Frat had 
done originally ; namely, good or fine water. With 
the lapse of time, Frat or Phrat, lost its substantive 
meaning of water in Greek, as it had previously 
lost its adjective meanings of fine, sweet; and the 
word Euphrates, with a Greek prefix and termination, 
became merely \hQ proper name of a river, conveying 
no idea whatever of its etymology or signification. 
In Richardson I find Dachil as an Arabic word, 
with the meanings of a branch — the river Tigris. 
With the Hebrew definite article Hay (h) prefixed, 
and coalescing, this word supplies the etymology 
of Hiddekel. The^Septuagint have translated it 
Tigris, but the authors of the English version have 
retained the Hebrew, or rather Arabic word. 

14. Whenever that Arabic race was driven 
northward by the operation of that principle of 
population which was intended to people the world, 
and will ultimately completely efi*ect this purpose, 
vast as the globe is, they would naturally carry 
their language with them. At the present day we 
find a vast tract of country in a high northern 
latitude, denominated Siberia, and I believe that 

c 3 



22 INVESTIGATION OF THE ORIGIN OF 

word to be as certainly of Arabic etymology, as 
it is expressive of the nature of the country on 
which it is bestowed. In Richardson's Arabic and 
Persic Dictionary, I find the word Sabarah, or Sa- 
barat, with the meaning of intense winter cold; 
hence Siberia, the name of the country ; and if to 
Sabarah we add the Sanskrit word Jan, a man, or 
person (the termination of all nouns ethnical in 
Ian), we shall have, by a slight contraction, Si- 
berian, that is, a man who inhabits an extremely 
cold country. We find in ancient Scythia, in a 
high northern latitude, Mount Imaus, in Thrace 
Mount Hagmus, and between Hindustan and Tar- 
tary the highest mountains in the world, the vast 
chain of the Himalaya. The etymology of the 
last word, or rather words, is Sanskrit — Hima, 
cold, frost, snow ; and Laya, house, dwelling-place. 
As the Sanskrit is universally allowed to be one of 
the oldest languages in existence, a strong pre- 
sumption immediately arises that the Himalaya 
mountains, Mount Imaus, and Jiount Haemus, were 
all named by a race of Indian derivation, either 
speaking Sanskrit, or at any rate a language in 
which Sanskrit words abounded. Another vast 
region in the north of Asia was denominated by 
the ancients Sarmatia, a word which is certainly of 
Persic etymology. In Richardson's Persic Dic- 
tionary I find the words Sarm^ Sarma^ and Sarmi^ 
all denoting cold; hence we have — 

Sarm (Persic), cold: 

Hiat (Arabic), life: 

Ian (Sanskrit), man, or person : 



THE NAMES OF TEIBES AND NATIONS. 23 

by contraction, Sarmatians, or a people inhabiting 
a high northern latitude, exposed to a severe cold. 
The word appears to have described a particular 
latitude, and not a particular people, speaking a 
peculiar language ; and accordingly, Herodotus in- 
forms us that the people whom he calls Sauromatse 
used the Scythian or general language; Scythia 
being the nomen generalissimum for Asiatic Tar- 
tary. 

15. So much for countries denominated from the 
cold ; and those denominated from the heat are so 
numerous, that to particularize them all would be 
wearisome, and I must limit myself to a few in- 
stances. The name of Egypt is derived from two 
words, still to be found in La Croze's Coptic Dic- 
tionary — Ei( Coptic), house, and Koht (Sahidic),fire, 
which the Greeks and Eomans softened to Egypt. 
In the Enghsh version of the Old Testament we 
meet with the expression " Ham, which is Egypt ;" 
but in the original Hebrew the word is uniformly 
written Cham, and signifies heat. (Gibbs' Gesenius.) 
In Coptic, Chemi is the common name of Egypt, 
while Kame, in Sahidic, means black (from heat), 
It is probable, however, that these names had a 
reference to sun worship, as well as to the temper- 
ature of the climate. In Wilkins's Sanskrit Gram- 
mar I find the Dhato, or verbal root Indh, signi- 
fying light, inflame, burn, kindle. As a noun 
substantive, it would be a name either of the sun 
or of fire. Written with an initial aspirate 

c 4 



24 INVESTIGATION OF THE ORIGIN OF 

Hindh^ the sun, or fire, 

Istan^ place, 
we shall have Hindustan, the Oriental name of 
India, that is, the land of the sun, because the 
sun was their principal god, or the land of fire, 
from the heat of the climate. The Greeks ap- 
plied with extreme looseness the name of Ethi- 
opia to all hot countries, from the word Aithopa, 
black; they named Mauritania, in Africa, from the 
word Mauros, black, and called Africa itself Libya, 
from Lips, the south-west wind ; also the position of 
Africa, with relation to Greece, and necessarily hot, 
from being near the equator. 

2. Locality, 

1. Cimmerians, by contraction Cimbri, in Gaelic 
Cymri, 

Chemi (Egyptian), black. 

Chum (Hebrew), black, 

Kahm (Arabic), black, 

Ra (Persic), mark of the oblique case, 

Ian (Sanskrit), a man or person; 
by doubling the M, Cimmerians, that is, a people 
whose original seat was in a high northern latitude, 
referred by their southern neighbours to the polar 
circle itself, and the six months' night which prevails 
within it. Homer was certainly acquainted with 
this fact, which induced him to place his hell 
there : - — 

There, in a lonely land and gloomy cells, 
The dusky nation of Cimmeria dwells ; 



THE NAMES OF TRIBES AND NATIONS. 25 

The sun ne'er views the uncomfortable seats 
When radiant he advances, or retreats. 
Unhappy race ! whom endless night invades, 
Clouds the dull air, and wraps them round in shades. 

Pope's Odyssey^ book xi. 

2. Tartar Y, Tartarus. 

Tar (Persic), darkness. 
Tartar^ darkness of darkness. 
Tartary^ the country in the neighbourhood 
: of the polar circle. 

Tartarus (Greek), hell, or the region of 
darkness. 
In the eighth book of the Iliad, Jupiter, addressing 
Juno, says: — 

Fly if thou wilt to earth's remotest bound. 
Where on her utmost verge the seas resound ; 
Where cursed lapetus and Saturn dwell. 
Fast by the brink within the streams of hell. 
No sun e'er gilds the gloomy horrors there, 
No cheerful gales refresh the lazy air. 
There arm once more the bold Titanian band. 
And arm in vain ; for what I will shall stand. 

Pope's Iliad. 

In the original, the passage concludes, ^a^ug 
8s TB ToLprapog aix^ig^ profundus autem Tartarus 
circum. 

3. Taran (Persic), dark. 

Touran^ the country to the north of the 
Oxus, in contradiction to Iran, or Persia 
Proper — by an extension of meailing 
Tartary, or Cimmeria. Sir William Jones 
says, " The best lexicographers assert 
that numberless words in ancient Persian 



26 INVESTIGATION OF THE ORIGIN OP 

are taken from the language of the Cim- 
merians, or the Tartars of Kipchak." — 
Works, vol. iii. p. 119. 
4. Arabia. 

Arby Hebrew radical letters. 
Ereb, "with the vowel points, the west, 
evening, darhness, so named by a Persic 
or Indian race. 
Erebus (Greek), hell, the region of dark- 
ness. 
Erembi (Greek), with M redundant, the 
Arabs. {Homer,) 
In the fourth book of the Odyssey, Ulysses 
says,— 

For eight slow circling years, by tempests tost, 
From Cyprus to the far Phoenician coast 
(Sidon the capital,) I stretch'd my toil 
Through regions fatten'd with the jflows of Nile ; 
Next, Ethiopia's utmost bound explore, 
And the parch'd borders of the Arabian shore. 

In the original AiSioTrag ^' /^o^tjv, xoli 'Si^oi/iovg 
xoLi EpsiM^ovg, a passage which has perplexed the 
commentators not a little. The word Cush, in the 
Old Testament, is applied to, at least, three per- 
fectly distinct countries, Persia or Mesopotamia, 
Arabia, and Abyssinia, which I think the Septuagint 
and English versions have always rendered by 
Ethiopia. The Ethiopia here meant is the north of 
Arabia, and the Ethiopians and the Erembi are 
precisely the same people. That Arabia is one of 
the Scripture Cushs it is impossible to doubt. 
Numbers xii. 1. says of Moses, he had married an 



THE NAMES OF TRIBES AND NATIONS. 27 

Ethiopian woman, in the Hebrew Cushi; but we 
know that he married the daughter of Jethro, the 
priest of Midian in Arabia. 

5. Bactriana. 

Bakhtar (Persic), the east. Hence the Per- 
sians call the sun king of the east and 
west. Hence too is named the noble and 
extensive region of Khorassan (Khur, 
Persic, the sun), called by the ancients 
Bactriana ; and also the great river 
Bactrus (Amu or Gihon), on account of 
their eastern situations with regard to 
Persia. {Richardson.) 

6. Saracens. 

Shark (Arabic), the rising sun, the east, the 
east country, Asia. The term Saracens was 
applied by the chroniclers of the middle 
ages to all the votaries of Mahomet, by 
whom the Crusaders were opposed. The 
word did not describe any particular 
people, so that it is in vain to look for a 
Saracen language, but was equivalent to 
Orientals or Asiatics. 

3. Abode. 
16. According to Herodotus, the Carians were 
anciently Leleges ; but in another passage he informs 
us that Car was the son of Atys, and that from him 
the Carians were descended: also that Car had 
three brothers, Lydus, Mysus, and Tyrrhenus, who 
bequeathed their names to the Lydians, Mysians, 



28 INVESTIGATION OF THE ORIGIN OF 

and Tyrrhenians respectively. But lie informs us, 
at the same time, that the Lydians were formerly 
Maeonians, and the descendants of Manes. If the 
Carians were Leleges, they must, according to the 
genealogical system, have been the progeny of 
Lelex, and could not also have been the progeny of 
Car, no more than an individual can have two 
fathers ; and if the Lydians were primarily Mseon- 
ians and the descendants of Manes, they could not 
be also the descendants of Lydus ; so that while we 
account for the assumption of the names of Carians 
and Lydians, we incur an equal or greater diffi- 
culty to assign any plausible reason why the appel- 
lations of Leleges and Mseonians should have been 
relinquished, and discover the genealogical system 
to be so unstable, that it falls to pieces even in the 
hands of its inventor. 

17. In giving the above accounts, however, the 
father of history had either not read, or forgotten, or 
despised the authority of the father of epic poetry, 
who makes the Leleges and Carians, the Maeonians 
and the Mysians (not the Lydians indeed, but their 
brethren, according to the above genealogy), all con- 
temporary, and brings them together in the same 
passage. In the night adventure of Diomed and 
Ulysses, having captured Dolon, the Trojan spy, 
Ulysses inquires the position of the auxiliaries, 
and receives the following reply : — 

To whom the spy : Their powers they thus dispose ; 
The P^ons, dreadful with their bended bows, 
The Carians, Caucons, the Pelasgian host, 
And Leleges, encamp along the coast. 



THE NAMES OF TRIBES AND NATIONS. 29 

Not distant far, lie higher on the land 
The Lycian, Mysian, and Masonian band, 
And Phrygia's horse, by Thymbra's ancient wall ; 
The Thracians utmost and apart from all : 
These Troy but lately to her succour won, 
Led on by Rhesus, great Eioneus' son. 

Pope's Homer, book x. 

Strabo, commenting on this passage of Homer, 
after mentioning the names of several cities, re- 
marks, all these places, according to Homer, be- 
longed to the Leleges. Some confound the latter 
with the Carians ; but this poet distinguishes them, 
saying, " by the sea-shore encamp the Carians, the 
Paeones armed with bows, the Leleges, and the 
Caucons." These verses prove that the Leleges 
and the Carians were two different people. The 
former inhabited the states of ^neas, and the 
country of those whom Homer denominates Cih- 
cians. Ruined subsequently by Achilles, they 
passed into Caria, and occupied the territory in 
which Halicarnassus is at present situated. (Strabo^ 
lib. xiii. c. 1. 55.) 

18. One etymology of Leleges I believe to be (for 
I shall have to notice another) lo, Hebrew negative 
particle, and laya, Sanskrit, house, dwelling ; that is, 
that they were a nomadic people, dwelling in tents^ 
and shifting their quarters with the change of 
the seasons for the convenience of the pasturage of 
their flocks and herds ; and as this is the second 
stage of civil society, the first being that of hunters 
and fishers, and as the whole human race which 
have attained civilization at some period of their 



30 INVESTIGATION OF THE ORIGIN OF 

history must have passed through it, we cannot 
wonder at meeting with a great many words by 
which this nomadic or shepherd state is described, 
of which I shall proceed to adduce several other 
instances. 

2. Hagarenes, or Hagarites, one of the Scrip- 

ture names of the Arabians. 

Agar (Sanskrit), a house. 

Aagar (Sanskrit), with a privative, no 
house, i. e. a tent. 

Hagar^ in Scripture, the mother of Ishmael. 

Hagarenes^ in Scripture, a name of the 
Arabs, from living in tents. 1 Chron. 
chapter 5. verse 10. : " And in the days 
of Saul they made war with the Hagarites, 
who fell by their hand : and they dwelt 
in their tents throughout all the east land 
of Gilead." 

3. Kedar, a Scripture name of the Arabians. 

Kedar^ the son of Ishmael, Gen. xxv. 13. 

Kadar (Hebrew), black; the black goats' 
hair of which the tents of the Arabians 
are formed, and, by metonymy, the tents 
themselves. Isa. xxi. 17. : " The children 
of Kedar;" that is, a pastoral people 
dwelling in tents. Sol. Song, i. 5. : "I 
am black, but comely, ye daughters of 
Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar., as the 
curtains of Solomon." 

4. Skenites, or Scenites^ a name of the Arabians, 

from living in tents. 



THE NAMES OF TEIBES AND NATIONS. 31 

Skene (Greek), a tent, 1 those who pass 
Hiat (Arabic), life, J their lives in tents. 

The Greek writers apply this name to all nomadic 

or pastoral people. 

5. Nabatheans, a name of the Arabs of the 

Desert, from having no house. 
Genealogical : 

Nehajoth^ the eldest son of Ishmael. (Gen. 
XXV. 13.) 
Etymological : — 

Na (Persic), negative particle. 
Baith (Hebrew), house. 
Jan (Sanskrit), man, or person. 
Diodorus, describing the Nabatheans, says of them, 
"they dwell in the open country, and not under 
any roof;" or in other words, inhabit tents, and 
not houses. 

6. Helots, that is, people living in tents — no- 

mades or shepherds. 

Ahel^ or Ohel (Hebrew), a tent. 

Hiat (Arabic), life. 
Sir John Malcolm, in his History of Persia, gives 
the following account of a people whom he denomi- 
nates Elauts, a name derived from the circum- 
stance of their dwelling in tents. " The inhabit- 
ants of Persia may be divided into four great 
classes. The first, and most powerful if united, 
are the native tribes of the nation, who continue to 
live in tents, and change their residence with the 
season. The great mass of this part of the popu- 
lation, whose habits are pastoral and military, are 



32 INVESTIGATION OF THE ORIGIN OF 

to be found along those ranges of hilly country, 
which, commencing near the entrance of the Per- 
sian Gulf, stretch parallel with its shores to Shus- 
ter, and from thence, taking a north-western direc- 
tion, extend up the left bank of the Tigris as high 
as the province of Armenia. The region that has 
been described includes Kirman, almost all Fars, a 
part of Irak, and the whole of Kurdistan. The 
inhabitants of these countries are divided into 
many tribes ; but there cannot be a stronger proof 
of their coming from one stock, than that the lan- 
guages which they speak are all rude dialects of the 
Pehlvi. There is a considerable diiference in these 
dialects, but not so much as to prevent the inha- 
bitants of one province understanding that of 
another." — Malcolm's History of Persia, vol. ii. 
p. 119. 

4. Food. 

19. In the " Recherches Philosophiques sur les 
Egyptiens et les Chinois " of De Pauw, I met with 
the following remark, which I will quote in the 
author's own words : — " On sait qu'il a ete un temps 
dans I'antiquite ou Ton distinguoit les peuples par 
des noms tires de leur maniere de se nourrir qu'on 
regardoit comme la partie la plus remarquable de 
leurs mopurs." Tome i. p. 169. Though this au- 
thor was celebrated both for the extent of his 
knowledge and the acuteness of his observation, he 
had, I believe, little idea of the importance of his 
remark, of its wide application, and of the interest- 



THE NAMES OF TRIBES AND NATIONS. 33 

ing consequences that might be deduced from it. 
Its importance may be inferred from the following 
passage of Herodotus : — " It is a custom with the 
Scythians to deprive all their slaves of sight, on 
account of the milk., which is their customary drinh. 
They have a particular kind of bone shaped like a 
flute : this they apply to a mare, and blow into from 
the mouth. It is one man's oflice to blow, an- 
other's to milk the mare. Their idea is that the 
veins of the animal being thus inflated, the dugs 
are proportionably filled. When the milk is thus 
obtained they place it in deep wooden vessels, and 
the slaves are directed to keep it in constant agita- 
tion. Of this, that which remains at the top is 
most esteemed ; what subsides is of inferior value. 
This it is which induces the Scythians to deprive 
all their captives of sight, for they do not cidtivate 
the ground, but lead a pastoral life^ — Lib, iv. c. 2. 
1. Chis (Arabic), milk. Derivatives — 

Caseus (Latin), cheese, a preparation of 

milk. 
Cheese (English). 
Application : — 

Chis (Arabic), milk. 
Eiat (Arabic), life. 

Cushite, a Scythian, a nomade, one of a 
nation living in a shepherd-state, and 
subsisting chiefly on the milk of their 
flocks and herds. This state implies three 
material consequences : first, that they were 
continually shifting their quarters for the 

D 



34 INVESTIGATION OF THE ORIGIN OF 

convenience of pasturage ; that they did 
not practise agriculture; and did not 
build houses, but lived either in tents 
or in waggons, from which latter cir- 
cumstance the Greek writers denominate 
such nations Scenites^ from shene (Greek), 
a tent, and Mat (Arabic), life ; or 
Hamaxohii^ from amaxa^ a wain, and hios^ 
Hfe. 

Cush^ a shepherd living on milk. 

Cuth^ the Chaldee form of the above Arabic, 
or Hebrew word. 

Scuth, or Skuth^ the latter word with the 
Greek aspirate sigma prefixed. 

Thrax^ or ThrakSj a Thracian. Perhaps the 
latter word Skuth, read from right to left, 
with the Greek Eho redundant following 
Theta.* We are quite sure that the double 
letter Xi formed no part of the primitive 
Greek alphabet. In the oldest existing 
Greek inscriptions we find ks. Kappa, and 
Sigma, and no Xi. 

Goth^ from Cuth^ by changing C to G, 

GetWj from the latter, by varying the termi- 
nation. 



* Lanzi, in his " Saggio di Etrusca," says, instead of the 
double letter Xi, we find Ks in the Nanian and Amjclean In- 
scriptions; deksai for dexai, and oksolou for oxolou ; and 
among the ^olians, who never used this double letter, we 
meet with ieraks for ierax. (Tom. i. p. 86., ed. 1789.) 



rrHE NAMES OF TRIBES AND NATIONS. 35 

2, Mas (Arabic), milk. 
Application : — 

Massa-getw^ a great Scythian people ; so great, 
that their name may almost be regarded as 
generic, and equivalent to Scythian. He- 
rodotus remarks of them, that they sow no 
grain^ but subsist entirely on cattle, and 
on the fish which the river Araxes abun- 
dantly supplies; milk also constitutes a 
part of their diet. They sacrifice horses 
to the sun, their only deity ; thinking it 
right to ofier the swiftest of mortal ani- 
mals to the swiftest of immortal beings, 
(Lib. i. c. 216.) 
As Herodotus says in so many words that the 
Thussa-Getae supported themselves by hunting 
(fib. 4. c. 22.), we may fairly conclude that the ad- 
juncts thussa and massa were descriptive of a mode 
of life, and that the latter word apphed to the milk 
diet and pastoral habits of the Massa-Getae. Strabo, 
apparently following Herodotus, repeats that they 
sacrificed horses to the sun, and did not practice 
agriculture. (Lib. xi. c. 11. 3.) 

Mysians^ Strabo says from mysos^ a beech 
tree ; but, I believe, beech-trees had as 
little to do in giving them a name as 
Mysus, the son of Atys. They were 
clearly nomades, living chiefly on milk, 
and gave their name to the 
Mceso- Goths, whom Strabo fully identifies 
with the Mysians of Asia-Minor (lib. vii. 

D 2 



36 INVESTIGATION OF THE ORIGIN OF 

c. 3. 2.) ; while in many passages of Lye^s 
"Introduction to the Mseso-GotMc Gos- 
pels of Ulphilus," the words Scythian and 
Goth are used as synonymous. 
3. Gala (Greek), milk. 

Galaktophagi^ living on milk of any sort ; 

from gala^ milk ; phago^ to eat. 
Hippomulgi^ living on the milk of mares ; from 
ippos (Greek), horse ; amelgo (Greek), to 
milk ; or rather from the Latin and ^Eolic 
form of the word mulgeo^ to milk. 
Both these words occur in the same passage of 
Homer, at the commencement of the 13th book of 
the Iliad ; but Pope was obliged to omit the 
Galaktophagi, from the difficulty of reconciling it 
with English metre. 

" When now the Thunderer on the sea-beat coast 
Had fix'd great Hector and his conquering host, 
He left them to the fates in bloody fray 
To toil and struggle through the well-fought day. 
Then turn'd to Thracia from the field of fight 
Those eyes that shed insufferable light ; 
To where the Mysians prove their hardy force, 
And hardy Thracians tame the savage horse ; 
And where the far-famed Hippemolgian strays, 
Renown'd for justice and for length of days. 
Thrice happy race ! that innocent of blood, 
From milk innoxious, seek their simple food." 

Pope's Homer, book xiii. 

Galatce and Galatians ; from 

Gala (Greek), milk. 

Hiat (Arabic), life. 

Jan (Sanskrit), man, or person. 



wmm 



THE NAMES OF TRIBES AND NATIONS. 37 

Celtce^ from Galat^, by cliaiiging G into C. 
Gael and Gaul^ from Galatse, by contrac- 
tion. 
Monsieur Gosselin, one of the intelligent transla- 
tors and commentators of the valuable French 
edition of Strabo, remarks of this great people that 
they called themselves Celtae ; that the Greeks called 
them Galatas, and the Romans Galli or Gauls ; and 
they had many other names, as we shall perceive in 
the chapter that will be devoted to them. Dio- 
dorus calls those Gauls who besieged and took 
Rome (the Senones) Celtae ; and at an earlier 
period, that name would have comprised all the 
inhabitants of Germany and France certainly, and 
perhaps also those of Spain and Italy. It was 
nearly equivalent to, and co-extensive with, that of 
Scythian, and described a great nomadic people, 
speaking probably innumerable dialects formed 
from the languages of Asia, living chiefly on milk, 
and deriving their name from that circumstance. 

5. Religion. 

20. It is remarkable enough, that though in 
almost every country both of Europe and Asia we 
find the great divisions of the people denominated 
from the name either of the god they worship, or 
the prophet or teacher whose exposition they follow, 
it should not have occurred to any one that the 
names of nations themselves were derived from that 
of their principal divinity. The vast population of 
Hindustan is divided chiefly between Brahma and 

D 3 



38 INVESTIGATION OF THE ORIGIN OF 

Budha, in unequal proportions indeed, as the former 
is now predominant, while the latter, under the 
name of Fo, is the great deity of the Chinese, the 
Tartars, the inhabitants of Siam, Pegu, and Ava, 
of Ceylon, and most of the eastern isles, and many 
other extensive Oriental nations. Those Asiatic 
people who do not ackaowledge the sway of either 
Brahma or Budha have fallen chiefly to the lot of 
the prophet of Mecca, whose followers may also be 
comprised under two great divisions, that of the 
Sonnites, or Orthodox, and that of the Shiites, 
Heterodox, or followers of Ali, which is the pre- 
dominant sect in Persia. And in Europe, where 
all profess to worship the same God, and acknow- 
ledge the same Prophet, Jesus of Nazareth, we find 
the whole Christian world arranged under four or 
^ye names, derived either from the original Church, 
or the leaders who were chiefly instrumental in 
shaking ofi* the yoke of that Church, and bringing 
about the Reformation ; they are either Roman 
Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists, Arminians, Arians, 
or Socinians — names under which are comprised 
almost all the innumerable shades of religious 
opinion. The polytheism, and consequent uni- 
versal toleration of the Greeks and Romans, ren- 
dered them so indiflerent both as to the numbers 
and names of their divinities, that the possibility of 
nations being denominated from the epithets of 
their gods does not appear to have occurred to 
them ; and yet nothing can be more certain than 



wmmmm 



THE NAMES OF TBIBES AND NATIONS. 39 

that this was very extensively the case, as I shall 
now proceed to show. 

1. Scandinavia. The true etymology of this 
word, or rather words, when discovered, 
will at the same time, in no inconsiderable 
degree, define the geographical position of the 
country, and by proving the former to be 
Sanskrit, as we are about to do, we extend 
the boundaries of the latter over great part 
of the North of Asia. 
Scanda^ Skanda, or Kartikeya the son of Siva^ 
and military deity of the Hindus. ( Wil- 
son^ s Sanskrit Dictionary^ p. 447.) 
Navya^ new, praise, panegyric. {Wilson^ 
p. 457.) 
Scandinavia, i, e. the praise or glory of Scanda, 
the country in which Scanda, Mars, or the God of 
War, was peculiarly and emphatically worshipped. 
Sir William Jones says, though Kartikeya, with his 
six faces and numerous eyes, bears some resemblance 
to Argus, whom Juno employed as her principal 
wardour, yet, as he is a deity of the second class, 
and the commander of celestial armies, he seems 
clearly to be the Orus of Egypt and the Mars of 
Italy : his name Skanda, by which he is celebrated 
in one of the Puranas, has a connection, I am per- 
suaded, with the old Secander of Persia, whom the 
poets ridiculously confound with the Macedonian. 
(Works, vol. iii. p. 364.) Skanda is identical with 
Budha, Budha with Woden, or Odin, and all with 
the sun. Scandinavia therefore is the country in 

D 4 



40 INVESTIGATION Or THE ORIGIN OF 

whicli the sun was worshipped under the name of 
Skanda, and at an early period described the north 
of Asia as at a long subsequent one it did the north 
of Europe. 

2. Sakya, or Sacya^ a name of Budha, whence 
Sacae, the name of the people, and Scythia, 
that of the country. {Wilson^ p. 836.) 

Herodotus, describing the vast army of 
Xerxes, says, the Sacse, who are a Scythian 
nation, had helmets, terminating in a point, 
and wore breeches. They were also armed 
in their country manner with bows, daggers, 
and a hatchet, called Sagaris. This people, 
though really the Amyrgii of Scythia, were 
called Sacae, the name given by the Persians 
indiscriminately to all Scythians. (Liber vii. 
c. 64.) In the same book we find the Sacse 
mentioned in connection with the Indians. 
*' It would indeed be preposterous," says Mar- 
donius, addressing Xerxes, '^ if after reducing 
to oiu' power the Sacae, the Indians, the 
Ethiopians, and the Assyrians, with many 
other great and illustrious nations, not in 
revenge of injuries received, but solely from 
the honourable desire of dominion, we should 
not inflict vengeance on these Greeks, who, 
without provocation, have molested us." 
(Liber vii. c. 9.) 
3. Brighu. 

In the laws of Menu, translated by Sir 
WiUiam Jones, and pubHshed in his works, 



THE NAI^fES OF TRIBES AND NATIONS. 41 

Brighu is called tlie son of Menu ; but we 
must not expect to find the mythology of 
India more consistent than that of Greece 
and Rome; and in "Wilson's Sanskrit Dic- 
tionary we are informed that Menu is a 
name of Brahma, and Brighu of Siva. I 
believe them aU to have been primarily 
names of the sun, and that the word Brighu 
is cognate with the Sanskrit Dhato, or verbal 
root Bhraj — shine. It would not be worth 
mentioning, however, if it did not supply a 
connecting link between Asia and Europe, 
and account for the origin of the names of 
the Bryges of Thrace, and the Phryges or 
Phrygians of Asia Minor. In Wilson's 
Sanskrit Dictionary I find Yriji, or Briji, 
a country probably that to the west of Delhi 
and Agra, or the modern Bruj; and with 
respect to the Bryges, Strabo says that they 
were a Thracian people, and identical with 
the Phrygians, and that the Mygdonians, 
the Bebryces, the Moedo-Bithynians, the Bi- 
thynians, the Thynians, and the Mariandy- 
nians, were also from Thrace. (Strabo, 
lib. vii. c. 3. 2.) 
4. CusH, CusHiTES, and Cuthites. 
Kisa (the sun), Sanskrit. 
Kusha (to shine), Sanskrit. • Wilson. 

Kusa (the son of Rama), Sanskrit. ^ 

Cusha (children of the sun). Third Age 

Jones^ vol. iv. p. 31. 



42 INVESTIGATION OF THE ORIGIN OF 

Cusha Dwipa (India) — Maurice (doubtful). 
Cusha Dwipa (Persia) — Lieut Wilford, 

In the Old Testament Cusli appears some- 
times to signify Persia, sometimes Mesopo- 
tamia, sometimes Arabia, and sometimes 
Ethiopia in Africa, In the English version 
Cush is rendered by Ethiopia in every in- 
stance, though very different countries, 
separated from each other by an immense 
distance, are clearly intended to be spoken 
of. Cuth appears to be the Chaldee form of 
Cush, by changing sh to th; and by prefixing 
an aspirate sigma to the former word the 
Greeks may have formed Scuth, or Scythian. 
As we know that the Hindus, Persians, and 
Assyrians worshipped the sun, Cushite, or 
Cuthite, may primarily have been equivalent 
to sun worshipper. 
5. BuDHA, BuDii, and Budini. 

Buddliah^ the ninth incarnation of Yishnu, 
and the apparent founder of the religion 
of the Bud'dhas. {Wilson^ p. 605.) 
Budha^ the son of the Moon, and regent of 
the planet Mercury^ with whom he is iden- 
tified, {Wilson, p. 606.) 
The names and order of the days of the week, 
if there were no other argument, would be quite 
enough to prove the Asiatic origin of a large pro- 
portion of the inhabitants of Europe. In Sanskrit 
we have Budhavara (Wednesday) ; in Latin, Dies 
Mercurii ; in Italian, Mercoledi ; in French, Mer- 



THE NAMES OF TRIBES AND NATIONS. 43 

credi; in Anglo-Saxon, Wodens-day; and in Ger* 
man, Wodanstag. The desideratum in this instance 
is, if possible, to supply intermediate links to con- 
nect the two distant extremities of the chain, and 
Herodotus furnishes us with a couple. He names 
the Budii among the Median people, and the 
Budini as a Scythian people to the north of the 
Sauromatse, or Sarmatians. He remarks of the 
latter that they are a great and numerous people, 
that their bodies are painted of a blue and red 
colour, and that they have in their country a town 
called Gelonus, built entirely of wood. (Liber iv. 
c. 108.) Is it rash to conjecture that they derived 
their name of Budini from worshipping Budha, or 
Woden, who in fact is the chief god in Tartary at 
this moment, and how early he began to be so it 
would be difficult to say. We learn from Tacitus 
that some of the Germans painted their bodies of 
a blue colour ; and it is not altogether unworthy of 
notice that he mentions a people of the name of 
Boduni among the inhabitants of this island. 

6. Siva. — The Suevi, a great German people. 

If the Scandinavians derived their name from 
worshipping Skanda, the Hindu Mars, the Sacas 
from worshipping Budha under one of his Indian 
names, that of Sacya, and the Budii and Bu- 
dini from worshipping him under his ordinary 
name of Budha, we cannot but allow that it was 
quite as probable that Siva, one of the great gods of 
the Hindu triad, was also worshipped under his 
ordinary name, and that the Suevi were his vo- 



44 INVESTIGATION OF THE ORIGIN OF 

taries. Of these Suevi, CaBsar remarks that it was 
accounted mucli to the honour of the nation to 
have the country for a great way round them waste 
and uninhabited, regarding it as an intimation that 
the united force of many states had been found in- 
sufficient to withstand their single valour; and 
that acting on this principle, the country on one 
side of them was a desolation extending six hundred 
miles. They may have derived this as a maxim of 
state policy from their ancestors ; at any rate, we 
find such a one seriously prescribed in the laws of 
Menu, which say, "Let him (the King) reside in 
a capital, having by way of fortress a desert rather 
more than twenty miles round it." (Jones, vol. vii. 
p. 303.) 

7. Mahatijah (i, e. Great Sword), a name of 
Skanda, or Kartikeya, the Hindu god of war. 
(Wilson,^. Q4.d,) 
Maha (Sanskrit), great. 

Tija (Sanskrit), sharpness of a weapon (by 
meton3niiy, the weapon itself). 

This was one of the forms or personifications of 
Skanda, the Hindu Mars, and we meet with it in 
his own region of Scandinavia, or Scythia. On 
the summit of a high pile of wood, says Herodotus, 
each Scythian tribe places an ancient scymetar, 
which is considered as the shrine of Mars, and is 
annually honoured by the sacrifice of sheep and 
horses; indeed, to this deity more victims are 
offered than to all the other divinities. It is their 



TSE NAMES OF TRIBES AND NATIONS. 45 

custom also to sacrifice every hundredtli captive, 
but in a different manner from their other victims. 
{Herodotus^ lib. iv. c. 72.) We find something 
very like this in Italy, and sufficiently attesting the 
Asiatic origin of its earliest inhabitants. " The 
ceremony practised in the Kegia," says Gibbon, 
** bears, in my opinion, all the marks of the highest 
antiquity. A people desirous of representing the 
god of war, but who were incapable or unwilling 
to imitate the human figure, and therefore adored 
him under the form of a spear, — a horse sacrificed 
in the field, whose bloody head was carried in pro- 
cession and fixed to the wall of the Eegia, — every 
thing in these rites points to a Scythian origin, and 
indicates the manners of wandering barbarians." 
{Mis. Works^ vol. v. p. 321.) 

6. Habits. 

1. Ears (Arabic), a horseman. 

Fars (Arabic), Persia, Parthia. 

Farsi (Arabic), a Persian. 

Pharash (Hebrew), a horseman. 

Pharas (Hebrew), Persia, the Persians. 
Herodotus informs us, in his seventh book, thaj 
the ancient name of the Persians was Cephenes, 
and that they derived the name they were dis- 
tinguished by in his time from Perses, the son of 
Perseus and Andromeda, the daughter of Cepheus, 
King of Ethiopia (Gush?). If Perseus was a 
Greek, and if the Persic nation was descended from 
his son Perses, they ought by every rule of the 



46 INVESTIGATION OF THE ORIGIN OF 

genealogical system to have spoken Greek, unless 
we choose to say that Perses adopted in preference 
the language of his mother Andromeda. But in 
his sixth book Herodotus has the following per- 
plexing passage on the subject. "The Persians 
affirm that Perseus was an Assyrian by birth, he- 
coming afterwards a Greeh^ although none of his 
ancestors were of that nation. The ancestors of 
Acrisius claim no consanguinity with Perseus, 
being Egyptians, which account is confirmed by 
the Greeks. (Lib. vi. c. 54.) Now, without tak- 
ing upon me to decide whether the Persians were 
the descendants of Perseus or Perses, I have no 
hesitation in expressing my conviction that they 
derived their name from an Assyrian (Shemitic) 
word, that that name was significant, and that 
they were a nation of nomades, and called them- 
selves, and were called by their neighbours, horse- 
men. In different passages of his work Herodotus 
informs us that the Persians were totally unac- 
quainted with every species of luxury until after 
they had subdued the Medes, and that a Persian 
education was comprised in three things, — the art 
of the bow, that of horsemanship, and a strict 
regard to truth. By changing the termination of 
the Hebrew word Pharash (horseman), we have 
Pharath, its Chaldee form; and hence Parthian, 
with the same signification ; and we know that 
they were a nation of cavalry, and so formidable 
in the use of the bow that they destroyed the 



wmm 



THE NAMES OF tRIBES AND NATIONS. 47 

army of Crassus, and endangered that of Mark 

Antony. 

2. There was a Scythian or Sarmatian people, 
known to the Greeks and Romans by no 
other name than that of Hamaxobii, from 
the circumstance of not living in houses, 
but in waggons, in which they transported 
themselves and their effects from place to 
place, as their flocks and herds removed for 
the convenience of pasturage. While nations 
continued in this nomadic state there could 
hardly be said to be any geography; an 
inconsiderable tribe, at different seasons of 
the year, occupied an extent of country of 
several hundred miles. There were no 
cities, and it was consequently impossible to 
describe any situation except by its vicinity 
to a river or lake, or on which side it was 
of a great mountain chain, like those of 
Taurus, Caucasus, and Imaus. 



4S ON THE OPERATION OF 



CHAPTEE III. 

ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE OPERATION OF THE PRINCIPLE 
OF POPULATION, THE PRIMARY AND STILL ACTIVE 
CAUSE OF THE DISPERSION OF MANKIND. 

21. The greatest political revolutions wHch have 
been recorded by the pen of authentic history, 
appear to have been produced by the irruptions or 
migrations of the nations inhabiting the vast 
countries which extend from the temperate regions 
of Europe and Asia in the direction of the North 
Polar Circle. Yarious theories have been invented 
to account for this striking fact, which I shall 
briefly notice. Among these, one of the most 
singular is that of the celebrated Monsieur Bailly, 
which was first propounded in his History of 
Ancient Astronomy, and subsequently illustrated 
and defended at considerable length, and with great 
ingenuity, in a distinct work. He supposes that 
the extreme north, at some remote period, long 
anterior to the dawn of history, was the seat of 
knowledge, arts, and refinement, whence they were 
difi\ised in a southerly direction. To support this 
paradoxical hypothesis, he is obliged to have re- 
course to several gratuitous assumptions, one of 
which is, that in the early ages of the world the 
temperature of the northern latitudes was higher, 
and the climate more congenial to the comfort and 



wmm 



THE PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION. 49 

support of life than we now experience it to be. 
The objection to this opinion is, and it appears to 
be completely fatal to it, that it is not only unsup- 
ported by, but in direct opposition to, all the 
meteorological facts with which we are acquainted, 
which uniformly tend to prove that all climates 
have grown milder with the augmentation of popu- 
lation, and the progress of arts and government, 
which is no more than might have been previously 
expected. In proportion as the human race multi- 
plied, they felt themselves obliged to have recourse 
to agriculture as a means of support ; and in the 
course of the improvements incidental to the prac- 
tice of that art, forests were felled, and the soil 
laid open to the action of the sun and the air ; 
bogs and marshes were drained, and unwholesome 
exhalations removed ; rivers confined within their 
banks, and the formation of stagnant pools and 
lakes prevented ; and all these steps have been 
found by experience not only to be favourable to 
the melioration of climate, but conducive to the 
enjoyment of health, and the duration of life in a 
still more eminent degree. 

22. Others, again, observing the immense swarms 
which "the populous north" in every age has ap- 
peared to pour from " her frozen loins," have 
fancied that some circumstances peculiarly favour- 
able to the rapid increase of population were na- 
turally connected with a high northern latitude, — - 
the soil, the diet, the habits of life, and even the 
climate itself. But of all the branches of human 



50 ON THE OPERATION OF 

knowledge, our advances in political science would 
appear to be the most slow, gradual, and uncertain ; 
and in the department of political economy, the 
subject of population would seem to be beset by 
more inveterate prejudices, by more gratuitous 
assumptions, by more fallacious appearances, by 
a greater difficulty in ascertaining the actual state 
of facts, and of deducing legitimate conclusions 
from them, than almost any other that can be 
named. A strong and steady light, however, has 
been diffused over every branch of the subject of 
population since the publication of the great work 
of Malthus ; so much so, that on many points we 
are now able to reason confidently, respecting 
which Montesquieu, and even Smith, were con- 
strained to guess darkly. The Essay on Popu- 
lation may be said to have established several 
general truths beyond the power of contradiction 
or controversy ; and I shall now proceed to apply 
some of them to the illustration of the subject of 
the early migration of nations. 

23. In whatever countries we find the most un- 
equivocal proofs of their having been in possession 
of the advantages of civilization from the most 
remote antiquity, we are obhged, by every rule of 
logical reasoning, to regard those countries as the 
primeval seats of the human race, and all my 
inquiries point to Egypt and Hindustan. The 
splendid and gigantic remains of art in the former 
read us a lesson which it is impossible to mistake. 
We know that in every country the arts of necessity 



WPP 



THE PEINCIPLE OF POPULATION, 51 

precede those of luxury ; those which are requisite 
to the support of life, those which tend merely to 
dignify and adorn it. The pyramids, obelisks, 
tombs, and temples of Egypt, infer profuse expen- 
diture and unbounded wealth, and we know that 
wealth is the result of labour, and that the neces- 
sary condition of productive industry is the exist- 
ence of just and equal laws, which shall secure to 
the labourer the enjoyment of the fruits of his 
earnings. The proofs of the early civilization of 
India are of another kind indeed, but not less con- 
clusive than those of Egypt. In the latter country 
we have the result of settled government and wise 
laws in the magnificent remains of art ; in the 
former we have the laws themselves in the Insti- 
tutes of Menu, the Yedas, and Puranas, the 
copious drama, and still more copious philosophy ; 
and of a nature not less conclusive is the mythology 
of Hindustan, which illustrates that of every 
country both of ancient and modern Europe, and 
the composition of the Sanskrit, the language in 
which it is conveyed, which throws a light on the 
kindred languages of Greece and Rome. 

24. I shall often have occasion in the course of 
my work to mention the " Essay on the Principle 
of Population," and think it difficult to speak of 
Malthus too highly ; indeed the great merits of that 
work have long been generally felt and acknow- 
ledged — the liberal, comprehensive, and truly phi- 
losophical spirit with which the author engaged in 
his task, his indefatigable industry of research, his 

E 2 



52 ON THE OPERATION OE 

careful investigation of facts, liis logical inductions 
from those facts, and the ardent feeling of patriot- 
ism and philanthropy, the zeal to promote the 
best interests of mankind which pervade every part 
of the work. But while all these claims to admira- 
tion are readily admitted, the book has been con- 
ceived, I think very unjustly, to question the 
wisdom of the appointments of Providence, to re- 
flect on the Divine character and attributes, and so 
far to have, if not a directly immoral, an unsatis- 
factory, a perplexing, and a melancholy tendency. 
I am of opinion that the wisdom and benevolence 
of the Deity, so far as they are connected with 
the subject of population, may be completely vin- 
dicated in the three following propositions, which, 
as they are in the spirit of Malthus, form at the 
same time a defence of the rehgious part of the 
Essay on Population. 

1. That it was the intention of the Divine 

Being, in the creation of man, that every 
part of the earth should be peopled, 

2. That it was also part of his plan that the si- 

tuation in which man was placed should be 
such as to develop all the capacities of his 
physical, intellectual, and moral nature. 

3. That it is probable all the capacities and 

energies of the human character will not 
be called forth until every habitable part of 
the globe is not only inhabited, but made to 
produce its maximum of food, or in other 
words, until the earth supports all the hu- 
man beings it is capable of supporting. 



THE PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION. 53 

Proposition 1. 
25. It is obvious tliat the earth might have been 
peopled much more rapidly than it has been, if such 
had been the will of its Divine Creator. Instead of 
creating a single pair, and placing them, as we are 
informed, in a central situation in Asia, he might, 
if it had seemed good to him, have placed a male and 
female in every continent, in every considerable 
region, or in every large island of the habitable 
globe, and in a few centuries the world might have 
been peopled up to its maximum of produce, or the 
greatest quantity of food it can be made capable of 
raising by the utmost exertions of human industry, 
which must form the ultimate limit to the progress 
of population. The Divine Being adopted another 
and a simpler course. He created a single pair ; 
and by the establishment of what may be regarded 
as the fundamental law of the principle of popula- 
tion, established at the same time a moral necessity 
that the world should, in the course of a succession 
of ages, be fully peopled in every part. That fun- 
damental law may be stated to be, that population 
has a natural tendency to increase in a higher or 
more rapid ratio than the productions of the earth 
can be increased. Grant the existence of such a 
law, and the complete peopling of the world at 
some future indefinite period necessarily follows as 
a matter of course ; deny it, and it is by no means 
obvious how such an object was ever to be effected 
by merely natural means. 

£ 3 



54 ON THE OPERATION OF 

26. At the present age of the world, in which 
our happy lot has been cast, the advanced state of 
knowledge, and the perfection of the art of naviga- 
tion, have made us familiarly acquainted with almost 
every part of the globe ; and from the eminence on 
which we are placed we can cast a bird's-eye view 
on our species, and take a deliberate survey of man 
in every stage of the long march of civilization. 
At the extremity of South America, in Terra del 
Fuego, his utmost exertions appear barely sufficient 
to support an existence, which, with our views, it is 
difficult to regard as a blessing. In the northern 
division of the great Western Continent, surrounded 
by a civilized people, during the last two or three 
centuries, and witnessing the innumerable com- 
forts they enjoy, the aboriginal race, so far from 
catching the smallest portion of the spirit of im- 
provement, and imitating their example, however 
imperfectly, have found annihilation easier than 
improvement, as if they were formed by nature to 
be a nation of hunters and fishers, — and if they 
cannot be that, must needs be nothing. In the vast 
steppes of Tartary, and the sandy deserts of Arabia, 
we behold a people dwelling in tents, continually 
shifting their abode for the convenience of pastur- 
age, without arts, without letters, almost without 
any government except the patriarchal, or any laws 
except the simple laws of nature — unchanged from 
the earhest records of the past, and apparently 
destined to continue so through the revolving ages 
of the future. Africa, which took the lead in the 



pp 



THE PEINCIPLE OF POPULATION. 55 

march of civilization, and by the instrumentality of 
ancient Egypt was the means of diffusing coloniza- 
tion, arts, and knowledge, appears to have been ex- 
hausted by the first effort ; for, with the exception 
of Carthage, no other great state has arisen in the 
continent, — and the rival of Eome, like Egypt be- 
fore her, " died and made no sign ; " and the bar- 
barism which they for a time dispelled, has for 
many centuries overspread the territories of both 
with tenfold darkness. Hindustan, Persia, Syria, 
and Asia Minor, occupy a lower place in the scale 
of civihzation than they once filled; while China, 
the other great division of the Asiatic continent, by 
a singular fate appears to be equally incapable of 
retrogradation or advancement, and like the fabu- 
lous coffin of Mahomet, suspended between heaven 
and earth, has no tendency in the direction of 
either. 

27. In North America we find man in the sim- 
plest state in which his condition has ever been 
observed. When that continent was first discovered 
its inhabitants were hunters and fishers, and such 
as remain, are so still. They were content to live 
on the spontaneous productions of the earth, with- 
out making any effort to increase them. The neces- 
sary consequence of this mode of life was, that on 
any given spot, whatever might be its dimensions, 
the resident population could never increase beyond 
the supply of game afforded by that spot. When 
it exceeded that supply there was no resource but 
emigration, or removing to such a distance from 

E 4 



5fi ON THE OPERATION OV 

the original settlement as not to interfere with their 
supply of game, and to attempt to discover fresh 
supplies for themselves. In this way the whole 
continent of North America, vast as it is, would in 
no long period of time be fully jjeopled, with reference 
to its actual means of support, that is, the wild ani- 
mals which the chace presented to the arrows of 
the hunter ; and if the globe of the earth had been 
one vast continent undivided by seas and oceans, 
the whole of its surface might, in a few centuries, 
have been overspread with such a race, and the 
ultimate limit to population would have been the 
quantity of game which the earth produces spon- 
taneously ; for as no eiForts of man could, by any 
possibility, add to that quantity, it is obvious that 
unless he could exist without food, his own species 
could never augment beyond the number that could 
6e supported by that supply. A work distinguished 
by various and accurate knowledge, and large and 
enlightened views, Bishop Sumner's " Records of the 
Creation," has the following passage : " Perhaps it 
may be safely asserted that the people who derive 
their subsistence from the chace alone throughout 
the globe, do not exceed, do not even equal the 
number of the inhabitants of Scotland." I must 
confess that I derived much pleasure from reading 
this, for I had often contemplated the fate of the 
North American Indian race with painful feelings. 
The native possessors of the soil, an innocent and 
unoif ending people, appear to be doomed to gradual 
but certain eventual extinction, by a set of new 



THE PEINCIPLE OF POPULATION. 57 

comers, whose dominion is founded on usurpation, 
and who can urge no claim of right but that of 
force. This is a gloomy picture, and, at the first 
aspect, we find it difficult to reconcile it with those 
principles of the moral government of the Deity, 
which no one would ever wish to doubt; but in 
every instance God seeth not as man seeth ; and in 
the present, though it is true that the aboriginal 
race will be annihilated, yet by how many tens of 
millions will their place be supplied ; and to a be- 
nevolent Being delighting in the contemplation of 
happiness, as we suppose the Deity to be, how dif- 
ferent must appear the sum of good in the American 
Continent even now ! how difi'erent will it be a few 
centuries hence, when the progress of civilization 
has been carried across the Continent to its eastern 
extremity, and the United States will rival or ex- 
ceed China in population ! To take a stronger case ; 
if the whole earth had been entirely occupied by 
nations of hunters and fishers it could not, by any 
possibihty, have supported more than a few mil- 
lions ; at present it is supposed to contain upwards 
of one thousand millions ; and the advance of know- 
ledge and civilization is continually adding to the 
number. To augment the number of sentient, in- 
telligent beings, is to augment the capacity of 
human enjoyment ; and to a being who delights in 
communicating and beholding happiness as we con- 
ceive of the Deity, we cannot but imagine that this 
world must be continually a more and more agree- 
able object of contemplation. 



58 ON THE OPERATION OF 

Proposition 2. 

28. The operation of the fundamental law of the 
principle of population, or the tendency of the 
human race to increase in a more rapid ratio than 
the supply of food, was no doubt the cause in the 
infancy of the world of the different quarters of the 
earth being peopled ; but this law of population has 
two modes of operation, both equally irresistible in 
their nature, though very different in their effects. 
The pressure of population does not necessarily lead 
to emigration ; but if it does not produce this result, 
it produces another equally good, namely, such an 
improvement in the mode of living as will provide 
for the augmented numbers. The lowest state of 
civil society is that of hunters and fishers, and be- 
yond this the American Indians have never ad- 
vanced: the one immediately above it, is that of 
shepherds, supported by the milk and flesh of their 
flocks and herds ; and this they might have attained 
but for the inferiority of their mental powers, or the 
unfavourable tendency of their indolence and other 
moral habits, or the uncongenial climate, or the un- 
propitious soil, or the joint operation of all these 
causes together. In the shepherd state the same 
extent of territory is capable of supporting a greatly 
augmented number of persons, and in a much more 
comfortable manner than as hunters and fishers. 
Here the supply of food is susceptible of being in- 
creased by human care, industry, and skill ; in the 
former and lower state man was entirely dependent 



THE PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION. 59 

on the bounty of nature. The only Innit to the 
increase of the flocks and herds is the supply of 
pasture grounds ; and in the infancy of society little 
difficulty is experienced on this score, as when one 
spot is exhausted they remove to another ; but with 
the increase of population, pastoral nations experi- 
ence the same degree of inconvenience with refer- 
ence to their feeding grounds, as in the preceding 
state, with regard to their hunting grounds, and 
subjects of dispute become equally numerous, con- 
tentions as fierce, and wars as bloody. 

29. As the evidence of tradition and history 
points to Hindustan and Persia as the earliest seats 
of Asiatic civilization, the evidence of language 
tends no less clearly to prove that the vast regions 
of Tartary to the north of the great chain of the 
Himalaya mountains were peopled by the over- 
flowings of that southern population, and that they 
are the people who, under the name of Scythians, 
Sarmatians, Goths, Yandals, and Huns, first over- 
threw the colossal fabric of the Eoman empire, 
and next gave a new aspect to society in most of 
the countries of Europe. They are said to have 
come from Scandinavia, and I find Scanda in 
Sanskrit as a name of Kartikeya, the Hindu Mars. 
They are said to have been followers of Woden, 
and in the Indian calendar I find the same day 
sacred to Budha, as in our own language and in 
almost all those of modern Europe, to the former, 
while the letters B and Y in Sanskrit are com- 
mutable. Odin is described in the Edda of Snorro 



60 ON THE OPEKATION OF 

as the chief of the Asars ; and I find in Sanskrit 
the word Asara, fire, and know that Budha is 
merely a name of the sun. Herodotus informs me 
that there was much in common between the 
Scythians and the Massa-Get^, and that the sun 
was the great god of the latter. The same author 
describes the Arimaspians as dwelling in a high 
northern latitude, a very singular people with only 
one eye, which he supposes their name to indicate ; 
but when I find many compound words in Sanskrit 
and other ancient languages describing the sun as 
the eye of the world, I can entertain little doubt 
that they derived their name from their religion, that 
they were Sabians or Sun worshippers, and beheld 
their God every day with the same number of eyes 
as their neighbours, neither more nor less. The Ger- 
mans and the English have hitherto been accus- 
tomed to look to the north of Europe, the supposed 
Scandinavia, for the elucidation of their language 
and antiquities ; but when we reflect that the Edda, 
the oldest written composition of the northern 
people, is not more ancient than the twelfth or 
thirteenth century, an era of yesterday in com- 
parison with the origin of nations, it becomes quite 
obvious that either an attempt must be made to 
connect the early history of Europe with that of 
Asia, or that we must rest content to leave the 
whole subject involved in an obscurity which no 
eye can penetrate, and perplexed with contradic- 
tions which no ingenuity can reconcile. 



«PP 



THE PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION. 61 

Proposition 3. 

30. As the operation of the great law of the 
principle of population, or the tendency of the 
human race to increase more rapidly than food can 
be increased, appears to have peopled the continent 
of north America with tribes of hunters and fishers 
to an amount fully commensurate with its actual 
produce, so the operation of the same law appears 
to have peopled the vast regions in the north of 
Asia with tribes in the nomadic or shepherd state. 
The pressure of population against the means of 
subsistence first constrained them to cross the 
great mountain chain of the Himalaya, which sepa- 
rates Southern from Central and Northern Asia. 
Here at first " the world was all before them where 
to choose," and there can be little doubt that the 
progress of population was such as we now ex- 
perience it to be in some parts of the United States 
of America, doubling in periods of twenty, or less 
than twenty years. The country in the immediate 
vicinity of the great mountain chain was first oc- 
cupied, and they were impelled in a northerly 
direction by successive new comers. Their pro- 
gress northward, however, was checked by the 
severity of the chmate. Not only was the extreme 
degree of cold incompatible with the existence of 
comfort and almost of life, but in proportion as 
the temperature diminished, vegetation declined ; 
and the latitude which formed the ultimate barrier 
to the advance of the shepherds was that where 



62 ON THE OPERATION OF 

the pastures became insufficient for the support of 
their flocks and herds. To the eastward they ad- 
vanced in the direction of China, and of that nar- 
row sea which some centuries later they were fated 
to pass and people America. Of their progress 
westward we have occasional and scanty historical 
notices ; but the capture of Rome by the Gauls is 
a proof that the nomadic tribes had diffused them- 
selves over great part of the north of Europe. 

31. Political writers have been fond of illus- 
trating the progress of nations by comparisons 
drawn from the life of individuals, and of describing 
to us the infancy, the youth, the manhood, and the 
old age of civil societies. The resemblance is suffi- 
ciently obvious, but in one respect, and that a very 
material one, the dissimilarity is still more remark- 
able. Every individual of the human race who is 
born into the world, if his life is spared, continues 
in a state of progression up to a certain point, and 
through the stages of infancy, childhood, and 
puberty by the operation of a necessary and inva- 
riable law attains perfect manhood ; but this is by 
no means the case in the instance of pohtical com- 
munities. The aboriginal inhabitants of I^orth 
America have never advanced beyond the state of 
hunters and fishers, and may be said to have 
remained for ages in a condition of infancy : the 
tribes who possess the vast regions of Northern 
Asia have been nomades or shepherds from time 
immemorial, and not advanced beyond childhood; 
while the civilized states of Southern Asia, as com- 



THE PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION, 63 

pared with ancient Greece or Rome, or the most flou- 
rishing states of modern Europe, must be admitted 
never to have attained the perfect stature and fully 
developed powers of manhood. Again, in the hfe of 
the individual, the successive changes are as gradual 
and insensible as in the order of the seasons, while 
the four great divisions of pohtical society are as 
strongly discriminated as the imaginary zones into 
which the Greek geographers divided the world, 
and appear to be separated by impassable gulfs. 
Some have supposed the North American and Tartar 
races to be essentially inferior to the European in 
their intellectual and moral powers, while others 
are of opinion that their actual condition is the 
natural, not to say necessary result of the physical 
circumstances in which they have been placed. 
The whole of North America, when it was dis- 
covered, appears to have been one vast forest, 
adapted by nature to the residence of tribes of 
hunters and fishers, but not susceptible of being 
converted into pasture grounds without the employ- 
ment of a degree of labour, for which nothing short 
of the rich returns of agriculture could supply an 
adequate motive, and, as a matter of course, the 
woods were never cleared until after the arrival of a 
more civihzed race. On the other hand, while the 
extended plains of Tartary supply abundant pastur- 
age for their flocks and herds, the cold is so 
intense, and the climate so ungenial, as to render 
the returns of agriculture rarely abundant, and 
always uncertain, circumstances which have uni- 



64 ON THE OPERATION OF 

formly operated to render the condition of the 
inhabitants stationary, and check every tendency 
to improvement. One of the most difficult steps 
in the whole progress of civilization would appear 
to be the transition from the nomadic to the agri- 
cultural state. The existence of agriculture among 
a people supposes their residence to be, at least, 
sometimes stationary ; its extensive practice requires 
that they should be continually so ; and its per- 
fection demands that there should be a property in 
the soil, and that the land should descend in perpe- 
tuity from generation to generation, that the agri- 
culturist may be stimulated to exertion by the 
hope of reward, and the reflection that though he 
himself may not be benefited by the improvements 
he undertakes, he is laying the foundation of a 
fortune for his grandchildren and great-grand- 
children. But supposing a perpetuity in land esta- 
blished, if man were stimulated to exertion solely 
by animal wants, every motive to industry would 
cease when those wants were fully satisfied. But 
as the capacity of the human mind is almost 
unbounded, so the range of its desires is next to 
unlimited. When corporeal wants are satisfied, a 
taste arises for comforts, conveniences, luxuries, for 
variety, magnificence, beauty, sublimity ; and any 
individual who can minister to the gratification of 
any one of these, has the same moral certainty of 
securing a comfortable subsistence, as if he tilled 
the soil which supports, wove the garment which 
covers, or built the house which protects him with 



mm 



THE PRINCIPLE OE POPULATION. 65 

his own hands. This principle, then, of the pressure 
of population against the means of subsistence, either 
drives man to explore new countries, or forces him 
upwards in the scale of civilization, from the con- 
dition of a hunter of wild animals, which may be 
regarded as a state of nature, through the stages of 
a shepherd and agriculturist, until we arrive at 
that in which the labour of a minor part, devoted 
to the cultivation of the soil, supports both itself 
and the majority engaged in the infinitely diver- 
sified pursuits of arts, manufactures, and commerce. 
In other words, with the progress of population, 
man is either obliged to cover a greater extent of 
ground, or to render the portion he inhabits more 
productive : the operation of the first principle 
causes the whole of the eart'i to be peopled, that 
of the second tends to push on society to the 
greatest degree of improvement and most exquisite 
refinement it is susceptible of receiving. In a 
word, the advance of society, and perhaps of indi- 
viduals, appears to me to be an exemplification of 
the following lines from one of the greatest of 
poets : — 

Pater ipse colendi 
Haud facilem esse viam voluit ; primusque per artem 
Movit agros, curis acuens mortalia corda ; 
Nee torpere gravi passus sua regna veterno. 

ViRG. Georg. lib. i. 121. 

32. At the present moment, in England, we are 
quite certain, from the population returns, that con- 
siderably less than one half the number of its 

F 



QQ ON THE OPERATION OF 

inhabitants is engaged in agricultural labour, and 
that labour may be said to support the whole, as 
the proportion which the food imported bears 
to that which is raised is next to nothing. In 
every instance, to say that any country is advancing 
in agriculture, manufactures, commerce, and the 
arts of the most rehned luxury, is equivalent to 
asserting that at every step it contains a greater 
number of sentient intelligent beings, capable of 
receiving and imparting happiness ; and at the first 
view this appears to be an unmixed good, and a 
subject of gratitude and exultation ; but it may be 
asked, Does national happiness necessarily keep 
pace with the increase of population, and may not 
the rate of that increase be so rapid, as to be pro- 
ductive of almost unmingied misery ? 

33. The answer to this question is, that as the 
natural tendency of population in every country 
that has been long occupied and settled is to increase 
more rapidly than the means of subsistence can be 
multiphed, every di7'ect encouragement to population 
is not merely unnecessary, but positively mischievous. 
By increasing the population, we are not sure that 
we increase at the same time the supply of pro- 
visions ; and if we do not, the situation of the whole 
community, with reference to the food necessary to 
support it, is becoming continually worse and worse ; 
but by augmenting the supply of food, and the fa- 
cility of subsistence, we are quite sure of augmenting 
the population, and that too precisely in the degree 
in which it is wanted. In politics and poUtical 



wmmm 



THE PEINCIPLE OF POPULATION. 67 

economy, as well as all other subjects, there is an 
intimate connection between knowledge and happi- 
ness. False theories of the former, and false systems 
of the latter, tend to produce misery. The Poor 
Laws, as established in England in the reign of 
Elizabeth, have deteriorated the condition of the 
labouring classes more perhaps than any other 
single cause They began by misleading the la- 
bourer, have proceeded by disappointing, and ended 
by almost starving him. Supposing the Govern- 
ment had never interfered, the wages of labour 
would have been at every period an infallible cri- 
terion of the demand for labour, and their rise would 
have demonstrated that the supply of labourers with 
reference to the demand was insufficient, while their 
decline would have proved as conclusively that the 
supply was redundant. Whenever the rate of wages 
was such as to enable the labourer to marry with 
the fair prospect of providing comfortably for his 
family, marriages would have been early and nu- 
merous ; when, on the contrary, the rate was so low 
as to be barely adequate to the labourer's own sup- 
port, directly the reverse would have been the case. 
The legislature first asserted a proposition, which 
is utterly false, and which, if acted upon without 
check, would be subversive of all civil society, — that 
every man has a right to support independent of 
the exertions of his own labour ; and next proceeded 
to enact an impossibility, by directing overseers to 
set all the unemployed poor to work, their want of 
employment having arisen from the circumstance 

r 2 



68 ON THE OPEKATION OF 

that by the direct encouragement held out to popu- 
lation the supply of workmen had far outgrown the 
demand for work. If every man has a natural 
right to demand support from the community inde- 
pendent of any service rendered to the community, 
the only limit to the increase of popidation is the 
possibility of levying a poor rate to be transferred 
from the productive to the unproductive class : if, 
on the contrary, he has no such right, the progress 
of population will be checked when the wages of 
labour dechne below that rate which is adequate to 
the support of a family in the way in which the 
labourer himself has been accustomed to live. When 
the rate of wages is such that the existence of the 
labouring classes must be one continual struggle 
with the most severe privations, with insufficient 
food, insufficient clothing, insufficient domestic ac- 
commodation, and insufficient rest, his views of 
what renders life a blessing must be very peculiar, 
who, under such circumstances, can regard a rapid 
increase of population as a thing to be desired. No 
legislative enactment can alter the nature of things, 
nor can the wages of labour be raised while the 
supply and the demand continue in the same ratio 
to each other. We cannot materially increase the 
latter, but we may diminish the former. For more 
than two hundred years, the Enghsh Government, 
instead of educating the labourer in just views of 
his situation, his duty, and his interest, has been 
continually misleading him, by acting on a theory 
which is fundamentally erroneous, and raising ex- 



mmmfm 



THE PEINCIPLE OF POPULATION. 69 

pectations which can never be realized. The situ- 
ation of the labouring classes cannot be permanently 
ameliorated until the redundant population is re- 
moved ; and every facility ought to be aiforded them 
to transport themselves to some of the English colo- 
nies — to Canada, to the Cape of Good Hope, or to New 
Holland. Nor is it enough to remove the redundant 
population, unless we at the same time take steps 
to prevent such a redundancy from occurring again, 
by imparting to every class of the community the 
blessings of education, and by diffusing sounder 
views of the doctrines of political economy in all 
directions, from the newspaper and the periodical, 
from the pamphlet and the treatise, from the school 
and the university, from the pulpit and the senate. 
34. In whatever country the most strenuous 
exertions of the labourer, continued unremittingly 
during fourteen or sixteen hours out of the four- 
and- twenty, are insufficient to procure the bare 
necessaries of life, it is a concl sive proof of one of 
two things, — either that in that country the benefi- 
cence of nature, and the wise arrangements of Pro- 
vidence, are counteracted by false, superficial, and 
selfish systems of politics and political economy, or 
that population has nearly attained its maximum. 
England at this moment is such a country ; for not 
only in the manufacturing districts, but in many of 
the agricultural counties, the condition of the labour- 
ing classes is such that it is impossible to regard 
any addition made to their numbers as an augment- 
ation of the sum of national happiness. For this 

r 3 



70 ON THE OPERATION OF 

many causes may be assigned ; first, the pressure of 
a taxation which cannot be materially diminished, 
as by much the larger proportion of it is mortgaged 
to pay the interest of an enormous national debt, 
accumulated in a long course of wars, which the 
authors of them were pleased to denominate "just 
and necessary," but which posterity will probably 
regard in a very diiferent light ; secondly, the pro- 
digious and unconscionable sums levied on all classes 
of the community in a spirit of intolerance and 
monopoly to support a State religion, which is pro- 
bably professed by not more than half the popu- 
lation in England and Scotland, and by so incon- 
siderable a minority in Ireland, that it is obvious 
neither fraud nor force can support it much longer, 
and that its years, and almost its days, are niun- 
bered ; and, lastly, the Corn Laws, perhaps one of 
the greatest anomalies, to use the gentlest language*, 

* In the discussion on the Corn Bill in 1815 some noble peers 
expressed their opinion to the following effect : — 

The Marquis of Buckingham (the father of the present Duke) 
protested against the bill, against its principle, the mode of 
carrying it into practice, and against the precipitation with 
which it had been hurried through the House, in defiance of the 
petitions of the people. His Lordship characterized the measure 
as a bribe given to the landed interest, to induce them to ac- 
quiesce in the maintenance of war establishments in a time of 
peace ; and considered it as most unjust to the other classes of 
the community, that their Lordships should thus have secured to 
them in a time of peace the high prices which they had obtained 
during a period of war. 

Lord Redesdale defended the bill, contending that it was for 
the advantage of all classes of the community to encourage the 
growth of corn ; taking the import at one fortieth part of the 



THE PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION. 71 

in a commercial code which is full of anomalies ; 



but as the present minister retains the Income Tax, 
in opposition to what was universally regarded as a 
specific pledge that it should not continue in exist- 
ence more than three years, solely to enable him 
to carry into effect the large and comprehensive 
advances he contemplates towards a system of free 
trade, we may confidently anticipate that the Corn 
Laws, one of the greatest deformities in modern 
economical legislation, have received their doom. 
Unless the Corn Laws keep the average price of 
wheat in the home market permanently higher 
than it would be if there were no Corn Laws, 
the system cannot benefit the land-owner ; if they 
do keep it permanently higher, which it is hardly 
possible to doubt, the benefit of the landlord is the 
injury of every other class of the community. 
Either the government must be administered in a 
better spirit, and the sole, rational, and intelhgible 
end of all government, the greatest good of the 
governed, be kept more steadily in view, or a great 
change must take place in the circumstances of 

consumption, thirty-nine parts must be provided within our- 
selves. The landholders besides, whose rents, instead of in- 
creasing, had really diminished, though there was a nominal 
rise, ought to be maintained in their relative scale in society. 

Lord King considered the argument of the noble lord re- 
garding the landholders, to be speaking out upon the subject, 
and shewing the real nature of the bill. The measure was to 
operate by a monopoly, and must have the effect of raising the 
price of wheat. (Debate in the House of Lords, Monday, 
March 20. 1815, as reported in " Hansard's Parliamentary 
Debates," vol. xxx. pages 259 — 261.) 

F 4 



72 ON THE OPERATION OF 

England, and emigration must continually be more 
and more extensively resorted to. The pressure of 
population, as it was the original principle which 
operated to divide mankind into families, tribes, 
and nations, and to scatter them over the face of 
the earth, will continue to operate until the whole 
earth is fully peopled up to its utmost possible pro- 
duce ; as silent and unseen in its working, but as 
universal and irresistible as gravitation itself. The 
world is still in its infancy. There is America to 
be peopled, Africa to be civilized, Asia to be ameli- 
orated, and great part of Europe itself to be re- 
deemed from the yoke of civil and rehgious tyranny, 
and placed under the sway of wise, equal, and be- 
neficent laws. 

35. It is time, however, to apply these principles, 
so far as they are susceptible of apphcation, to ac- 
count for the mode in which ancient Scythia was 
peopled. The reader does not require to be in- 
formed that the materials for tracing emigrations 
which occurred long before the period of authentic 
history must necessarily be very scanty. The great 
thing is to make the most of them, which it appears 
to me we shall accomplish in the two following 
modes : — 

(1.) By tracing the progress of the nations of 
Southern Asia northward and westward, 
from the evidence of language. 

(2.) By a careful analysis of the words men- 
tioned by Herodotus, as forming part of the 
language of the Scythians. 



mm 



THE PEINCIPLE OF POPULATION. 73 

36. (1.) We are much indebted to Herodotus for 
supplying us with some chronological data in this 
part of our subject, not very definite indeed, but still 
not without their value. He informs us that the 
Scythians did not pretend to be a very ancient 
people; a circumstance so very uncommon, that I 
am disposed to place some confidence in the account 
they gave of themselves, which was, that their coun- 
try was, of all others, the last formed, and that 
when this region was in its original and desert 
state, the first inhabitant was named Targitaus, who 
was a son of Jupiter by a daughter of the river 
Borysthenes, and lived about one thousand years 
before the invasion of Scythia by Darius Hystaspes, 
and no more. {Herodotus^ lib. iv. c. 5 and 7.) The 
accession of Darius to the throne of Persia is placed 
by chronologers, b. c. 522 ; and one thousand years 
before, that is, a little more than fifteen hundred 
years before the Christian era, the vast regions of 
Scythia did not contain one human being. This is 
very nearly the period assigned by the Greeks to 
the Deluge of Deucalion ; and I would just remark 
how fatal this Scythian tradition, preserved by 
Herodotus, is to the hypothesis of Bailly, which has 
been already alluded to, and which would make the 
extreme north the cradle of the human race. In 
the sixteenth century, then, before the Christian 
era, I suppose the whole of Southern Asia, from 
the Mediterranean to the Ganges, to have been pos- 
sessed by nations who had not advanced beyond the 
nomadic or shepherd state, dwelling in tents, and 



74 ON THE OPERATION OF 

subsisting on the produce of their flocks and herds, 
and that all the pasture grounds were fully occu- 
pied. The pressure of population commenced, and 
the resource of agriculture was obvious, which 
would soon have removed it ; but all history and 
experience concur to prove that the transition from 
the pastoral to the agricultural state is the most 
difficult in the social progress of man. The Asiatic 
shepherds found it easier to emigrate than to ad- 
vance a step in civilization, and incur that total 
revolution of manners which is implied in a people 
which had been migratory, pastoral, dwelling in 
tents, and subsisting almost entirely on the produce 
of their flocks and herds, becoming stationary, agri- 
cultural, living in houses, and exchanging animal 
for a vegetable diet, of which corn forms the chief 
ingredient. We have seen the great Arabic, or 
Shemitic family, seated in the country which ex- 
tends from the Mediterranean to the rivers Euphrates 
and Tigris. They conferred on those rivers names 
descriptive of their nature, Frat and Hiddekel, 
which they still bear unchanged in the languages 
of the East. The pressure of population against 
the means of subsistence rendered emigration not a 
matter of choice, but of necessity. They advanced 
in a northerly direction towards the great mountain 
chain of Taurus, which, under various names, runs 
from west to east throughout considerable part of 
Asia. They named it from Tor, Arabic, a mountain ; 
they passed it, and we have indubitable evidence 



THE TRINCirLE OF POPULATION. 75 

that a Shemitic language was spoken at an early 
period in Cappadocia, in Pontus, and from the river 
Halys eastward to the Tigris. {HeerevbS Asiatic 
Nations^ vol. i. p. 71.) They advanced still farther 
north, and named Cimmeria, from the Arabic word 
Kahm, black, and the Persic Ka, the mark of the 
oblique case, intending to describe the thick dark- 
ness and long night which brood over the world as 
we approach towards the Polar Circle — a circum- 
stance which induced the early Greeks to regard 
this region as the seat of hell. They also probably 
named the Palus Mseotis from the Hebrew word 
Maweth*, death. Nor did their wanderings end 
even here, for they penetrated as far as the incle- 
mency of the climate is compatible with human ex- 
istence, and denominated the inhospitable region 
Siberia, from Sabarah or Sabarat ; a word which, in 
Arabic, signifies intense winter cold. The same 
race appear to have named a mountain chain, 
kno^vn to the ancients as the Eiphasan, from the 
Arabic word Rafia, high, exalted. In D'Anville's 
Map it appears in north latitude 60°, east longitude 
between 70*^ and 80°. 

37. The Persic race, stimulated by the same 
pressure of population, pursued nearly a similar 
line of proceeding. They advanced towards the 
north to the great mountain range of Caucasus. 
They named it by doubling the Persic word Koh, 

* " See where McBotis sleeps, and hardly flows 

The freezing Tanais through a waste of snows." — Pope. 



76 ON THE OPERxVTIOX OF 

hill, whicli in tliis form signifies a very high hill, or 
hill of hills. They crossed Caucasus, and advanced 
into a country which Herodotus describes as the 
seat of the Sauromatae or Sarmatse. They named 
that country from the Persic word Sarma, cold; 
which, as it rather describes a particular latitude 
than a particular country, was used by the Greek 
geographers with extreme looseness. In meaning 
it corresponds as nearly as possible with their term 
Hyperboreans. The same race spread north and 
east, and named Tartary, by doubhng the Persic 
word Tar, dark, black, which in this form, after the 
analogy of the Hebrew, signified very dark, or dark- 
ness of darkness, still with an allusion to the long 
night within, and as we approximate towards the 
Polar Circle like Cimmeria, as Sarmatia was nearly 
synonymous with Siberia, and as the Greek poets 
made Cimmeria the locality of hell, Tartarus, from 
the Persic Tartary, with them was hell itself. In 
a westerly direction the Persic race advanced to the 
river Borysthenes, named it from the Persic words 
Bur or Bor, a horse, and Istan, place ; and even- 
tually gave a name to Sarmatia, the ancient Poland. 
The influence of Persia on the language of Germany 
is strongly attested both by Grotius and Leibnitz, 
two of the most illustrious of her scholars. 

38. The Indian race advanced north to the 
stupendous chain of the Himalaya, which they 
named from the Sanskrit words Hima (cold, frost, 
snow), and Laya (dwelling), passed it, and pene- 
trated into Tibet ; and we have the testimony of 



THE PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION. 77 

Sir William Jones that the language of that coun- 
try was anciently Sanskrit (vol. iii. p. 175.), to 
say nothing of its religion being that of the Indian 
Budha. The same race appear to have repeated 
the Hima, of Himalaya, in Mount Imaus, which 
was again repeated at a long subsequent period in 
Europe, in the Mount Hasmus of Thrace. They 
also denominated the vast regions of the north of 
Asia Scandinavia, from the Sanskrit words Scanda, 
one of the names of the Hindu Mars, and Navy a, 
praise, panegyric, or glory. This is the true and 
original Scandinavia ; this is the real officina gen- 
tium ; this is the cradle of the religion of Woden, 
who is identical with Scanda and Budha ; this is 
the point from which those countless swarms of 
barbarians rushed, who in a subsequent age were 
destined to sweep away the mightiest political 
fabric, raised by the greatest people the sun ever 
surveyed in his course, and by something like the 
double office ascribed to the Indian Siva, first to 
destroy, and eventually to regenerate the world. 

(2.) For the few Scythian words we possess, we 
are indebted to the indefatigable curiosity, and no 
less extraordinary accuracy of Herodotus. De- 
scribing the fabulous Arimaspians, he says, they 
derive their name from Arima^ the Scythian word 
for one, and Spu, an eye. (Liber iv. c. 27.) On 
opening Richardson's Persic and Arabic Dictionary, 
I find Arim as an Arabic word, signifying also one, 
but cannot discover any thing like Spu in either 
language, and am tempted to conjecture that it was 



78 ON THE OPERATION OE 

formed from the Greek word Ops (an eye) by 
transposition. Again, in his account of the divini- 
ties of Scythia, Herodotus informs us that they 
called Jupiter Papgeus, and I find in Sanskrit the 
word Papis, signifying the sun. It appears to me 
hardly possible to doubt that the two words are 
identical when we recollect that the Massa-Getae 
were Scythians, and that the same historian de- 
scribes the sun as their great god. We learn from 
the same authority that the Scythian name of Vesta 
was Tahiti ; and when ^Ye know that she was the 
Bona Dea of the Romans, and when I find Agatha 
as a name of Vesta, or Cybele among the Etruscan 
Inscriptions in Lanzi, I can hardly entertain a doubt 
that Tahiti was formed by contraction from the 
words Tobah, good (Hebrew), and Thea, goddess 
(Greek). The Scythian name of the Celestial 
Venus was Artimpasa, which seems to be the Persic 
name which Herodotus ascribes to the same di- 
vinity, Mitra reversed^ with the Sanskrit word Bhas, 
shine, written Pasa. From Mitra reversed, the 
Greeks formed Artemis, a name of Diana ; and the 
Syrian Astarte, or the Queen of Heaven, signified 
the moon more commonly than any thing else. 
(Liber iv. c. 59.) The above words were carried 
northward by the nations of Southern Asia, im- 
pelled in that direction by the operation of the law 
of the principle of population. I shall now men- 
tion two or three more, which, originating in 
Scythia, acquired a permanent place in the lan- 
guages of Greece and Rome. Herodotus might 



THE PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION. 79 

have mentioned the name of another Scythian 
god, that of Abaris. He does mention him in- 
deed, but with evident incredulity: the story of 
Abaris, says he, who was said to be an Hyper- 
borean, and to have made a circuit of the earth 
without food, and carried on an arrow, merits no 
attention. In this instance my faith is much 
stronger than that of the father of history, and I 
have no hesitation in expressing my entire con- 
viction that Abaris travelled round the earth with- 
out eating, but I will not undertake to answer for 
his not drinking, as I think he will be found to be 
of a very thirsty nature*, Abaris being no other 
than the Latin word Jubar (a sunbeam), written 
in the Oriental mode, Aibar, with a Greek termin- 
ation, like Iran, the ancient name of Persia, which 
in the native characters is Airan. Herodotus also 
informs us that the Scythian name of the goddess 
Tellus, the earth, was Apia ; and we meet with 
Apia as a name of Peloponnesus in the Iliad. 
Herodotus also mentions the same divinity as 
Histia, the Scythian queen ; and if that was also a 
Scythian word, there can be no doubt that it sup- 



* Abaris, or the Sun personified, appears to have been a 
name of Apollo himself, of which Abdera was the corruption. 
Miiller, in his "History and Antiquities of the Doric Race," men- 
tions an oracular temple of Apollo at Deraea, near Abdera, 
alluded to in the device on the coins of Abdera ; on one side of 
which Apollo is seen with the arroiu in his hand ; and on the 
reverse is a griffin, a symbol of which appears to have been 
adopted by the Teians, in consequence of tlieir having resided 
for some time in their colony of Abdera. — Vol. i. p. 253. 



80 ON THE OPERATION, ETC, 

plies the etymology of the Greek Estia, and with 
the J^]olic digamma, of the Latin Vesta. As we 
have seen, the name of Siberia appears to be de- 
rived from an Arabic word, signifying intense win- 
ter cold; but there is no one Siberian language, 
but various languages, spoken in that vast tract of 
country. In the same way Herodotus informs 
us that the Sarmatians (Sauromatse) spoke the 
Scythian tongue ; but the probability is that 
there was no one Scythian tongue, because the 
Scythians were not a homogeneous people ; Scy- 
thia, or Scandinavia, was peopled by the over- 
flowings of the countries of the south, driven 
northward by the pressure of the principle of po- 
pulation, — China, India, Persia, Assyria, and Syria, 
who carried their own languages into that bleak 
region. Scythia was not the incunabula gentium^ 
but it certainly was linguarum^ so far as the Eu- 
ropean languages are concerned. From the San- 
skrit and the Arabic, the two predominant lan- 
guages of ancient Asia, together with their dialects 
mixed in various proportions, were compounded 
the Etruscan, Greek, and Latin, the Celtic, Slavonic, 
and Teutonic, or Gothic, as well as the various 
Tartaric languages which continue to be spoken 
in the North of Asia. As the languages of modern 
Europe were originally formed by synthesis from 
those of ancient Asia, it is the business of etymo- 
logy to reverse the process, and by analysis to 
resolve them, as far as it is practicable, into their 
primary constituent parts. 



wmmm 



ON THE CELT^, ETC. 81 



CHAPTER IV. 

ON THE CELTiE, AND THE CELTIC LANGUAGE. 

39. We have seen in the preceding Chapter that 
there are strong grounds for believing that the 
countries of Southern Asia were the earliest seats 
of the human race, and that, from the operation of 
the principle of population, and the pressure of in- 
creasing numbers against the means of subsistence 
while they were in the nomadic or shepherd state, 
they were constrained to cross the great mountain- 
chain, which, under the names of Mount Imaus, the 
Himalaya Mountains, Mount Caucasus, and Mount 
Taurus, runs irregularly, and in various latitudes, 
through great part of Asia, from east to west. We 
have traced the languages of Southern Asia — the 
Sanskrit, the Persic, and the Arabic — into Scythia 
through the medium of the proper names of places ; 
and, on analysing the few Scythian words we have 
been able to collect from Herodotus, we have 
obtained a similar result, and found the same lan- 
guages actually existing there. That labour was 
sufficiently difficult, but a much more severe one 
remains to be encountered, which is to trace the 
progress of that great Scythian people from their 
native seat to their final settlement in the different 
countries of ancient and modern Europe. 

40. If we cast our eyes on the map of Europe we 

G 



82 ON THE CELT^, 

shall perceive at a glance that with reference to 
language, in a broad and general way, it may be 
divided into four great classes or families ; which, 
while they have much in common and run into 
each other by insensible degrees, are still, on the 
whole, strongly marked, and distinctly discrimi- 
nated. They are as follows : — 

1. The Celtic, which is stiU spoken in Ireland, 

the Highlands of Scotland, Wales, the Isle 
of Man, and some parts of Brittany in 
France, where it was formerly denominated 
the Armorican, from the ancient name of the 
province. It also continued to be spoken in 
Cornwall until a late period. The name of 
heaven in Irish is nau^ and of the earth talu, 
words which, variously modified, are co-ex- 
tensive with the Celtic language. 

2. The Slavonic, or ancient Sarmatian, which is 

spoken in Eussia, Poland, Bohemia, Servia, 
Transylvania, Croatia, and many other pro- 
vinces. In common Russian the name of 
heaven is neho^ and of the earth semla^ and 
with some modifications these words are 
found wherever the Slavonic language is 
spoken. 

3. The Gothic, which is spoken in Iceland, 

Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Prussia, Ger- 
many, Holland, England, and the Lowlands 
of Scotland. The name of heaven in old 
German is himina^ or himins, and of the 
earth airtlia (in Tacitus hertha), and with 



npR 



AND THE CELTIC LANGUAGE. 83 

some changes these words are found where- 
ever the languages descended from the 
Gothic prevail. 
4. The languages immediately descended from 
the Greek and Latin ; which are spoken in 
Greece Proper, and the Islands of the ^gean, 
under the name of Romaic ; in Italy, Sicily, 
Sardinia, Spain, Portugal, and France. The 
Latin words coelum^ heaven, and terra^ earth, 
are found with slight changes in all those 
languages. This arrangement comprehends 
all the great divisions of Europe with the 
exception of Turkey and its dependencies, 
in which the rehgion of Mohammed pre- 
vails, and the basis of the language is Tar- 
taric, with a copious infusion of Persic and 
Arabic words. The present Chapter will be 
devoted to the Celtae and their language. 
41. Thucydides informs us that Thrace, under 
Seuthes, had the greatest revenue, and was in other 
respects the most flourishing of all the kingdoms of 
Europe between the Gulf of Ionia and the Euxine 
Sea, but that in military strength and numerous 
armies it was the second, though at a great dis- 
tance, from the Scythians, for that there was no one 
nation in Europe, nor even in Asia, that in these 
points was in any degree a match for them; or, 
when standing singly nation against nation, was 
able to make head against the Scythians united and 
in perfect harmony with each other ; while at the 
same time in every point of conduct, and the 

o 2 



84 



management of all the necessary affairs of life, they 
fell vastly short of other people. (Lib. ii.) Herodo- 
tus regards the Thracians as more numerous than 
any people except the Indians. " Next to India," 
says he, '' Thrace is of all nations the most consi- 
derable ; and if the inhabitants were either under 
the government of an individual, or united among 
themselves, their strength would, in my opinion, 
render them invincible ; but this is a thing impos- 
sible, and they are of course but feeble." (Lib. v. 
c. 3.) Pausanias describes Thrace as only infe- 
rior in population to the country of the Celtae. 
" Thrace," says he, " swarms with such a prodigious 
number of men, that, with the exception of the 
country of the Celtae, there is no other in the world 
so populous. This is the reason why before the 
Romans no people was able to conquer it ; but now 
not only Thrace, but the country of the CeltaB, 
acknowledges the Roman sway." (Lib. i. c. 9.) 
When Thucydides and Herodotus assert that if the 
tribes of Thrace acted in concert, all Europe united 
would be unable to resist them, we must understand 
those authors as speaking with great geographical 
latitude, and as using the word Thrace as nearly 
synonymous with Scythia. Indeed, we learn from 
Strabo that a large portion of Thrace was actually 
known by the name of Little Scythia. It is curious 
to remark in the authors just quoted the inveterate 
and often-repeated error of the great populousness 
of the northern nations. Any particular tract of 
country may be able to send enormous armies into 



AND THE CELTIC LANGUAGE. 85 

the field without being populous, as that circum- 
stance depends much more on the state of civiliza- 
tion than on the actual number of its inhabitants. 
A nation in the pastoral or nomadic state is capable 
of moving en masse with the flocks and herds which 
constitute all its riches, or of sending all its mem- 
bers capable of bearing arms on an expedition. 
The Cimbri, Gauls, Germans, and Goths, at differ- 
ent times, presented this spectacle to the Koman 
world ; and accordingly, ancient authors are unable 
to express their wonder at the prodigious populous- 
ness of the countries whence these hosts emerged. 
But the army consisted of all the males of an age 
fit to bear arms ; and though the actual number was 
vast, it was as nothing compared with the extent of 
territory the nation occupied, or rather over-ran. 
A country of which the inhabitants are hunters and 
fishers must necessarily contain fewer inhabitants 
than the same space occupied by shepherds, and 
the latter than the same extent possessed by agri- 
culturists, manufacturers, and merchants ; because 
in every instance the number of inhabitants is 
necessarily Hmited by the means of subsistence. 

42. The name of theCelta3 does not occur in Homer, 
and only twice in Herodotus, and that incidentally. 
Speaking of the Danube, or Ister, he says, " This 
river, commencing at the city of Pyrene among 
the Celtse, flows through the centre of Europe. 
These Celtae are found beyond the Columns of 
Hercules, and border on the Cynesians, the most 
remote of all the nations who inhabit the western 

G 3 



86 ON THE CELTiE, 

parts of Europe." (Lib. ii. c. 33.). And again, in 
connexion with the Danube : — commencing with the 
Celt£e, who, except the Cynetse, are the most remote 
inhabitants of the West of Europe, this river passes 
through the centre of Europe, and, by a certain 
inchnation, enters Scythia. (Lib. iv. c. 49.) This 
testimony is quite conclusive that at the period at 
which Herodotus wrote, the Celtae were in possession 
of all the western countries of Europe ; but the next 
question to be decided is, how far they extended 
east, and the most definite information I can find 
on the subject is contained in Plutarch's Life of 
Marius, who obviously alludes to some ancient 
authority which he unfortunately, however, does not 
specify. " Some," says he, " assert that the country 
of the CeltaB is of such vast extent that it stretches 
from the Western Ocean and most northern climes to 
the lake Maeotis eastward, and that part of Scythia 
which borders on Pontus ; that there the two nations 
mingle and thence issue, not all at once nor at all 
seasons, but in the spring of every year ; that by 
means of these annual supplies they had gradually 
opened themselves a way over the greatest part of the 
European continent ; and that though they are dis- 
tinguished by difierent names according to their 
tribes, yet their whole body is comprehended under 
the general name of Celto-Scythae." And Strabo 
says, "the earliest Greek historians called all the 
northern people by the general name of Scythians 
and Celto- Scythians ; but more ancient writers, 
making a distinction between these people, gave to 
those who dwell to the north of the Euxine, the 



AND THE CELTIC LANGUAGE. 87 

Danube, and the Adriatic Sea, the denomination of 
Hyperboreans, Sauromatas (Sarmatians), and Ari- 
maspians ; and when they spoke of those who dwell 
to the east of the Caspian, they designated a part 
of them by the name of Sacae, and a part by that of 
Massa-Getse, without being able, however, to narrate 
any thing with much exactness relative to either. 
{Straho^ lib. ii. c. 8. 1.) 

43. Taking the passages of Herodotus and Plu- 
tarch in connexion, we may deduce from them two 
very important conclusions, first, that the term 
Celt£e was nearly equivalent to Scythse, and that the 
Scythse, from the period of their entering Europe, 
were denominated Celtae ; and secondly, that it de- 
scribed the earliest inhabitants of nearly the whole 
of Europe, with the exception of that large northern 
portion which was occupied in an early age, and 
continues to be still possessed by the great Sarma- 
tian or Slavonic race, who have experienced fewer 
revolutions than their southern brethren ; from the 
Palus Maeotis, the modern Sea of Asoph in the east, 
to the Cimbric Chersonesus, the modern Jutland, to 
the north, to the Pillars of Hercules, the modern 
Straits of Gibraltar, to the south. As I have 
already remarked, many of the names of the 
Scythian nations were derived from the circum- 
stance of milk constituting the principal article of 
their subsistence, thereby describing the degree of 
civilization they had attained, and proving con- 
clusively that they were nomades or shepherds 
removing from place to place with their flocks and 

G 4 



88 ON THE CELT^, 

herds, according to the seasons, for the convenience 
of pasturage. And I believe the word Celtae con- 
veys precisely the same information, being a con- 
traction from the Greek word Galatae, which is 
formed from the Greek word gala^ milk, and Mat 
(Arabic), life, that is, a pastoral or nomadic people, 
supported chiefly by the milk, the produce of their 
flocks. It is remarkable, however, that we cannot 
trace the progress of the Celtse m Europe under 
the name of Celtae, perhaps from the very circum- 
stance of its wide and general signification which 
rendered it indefinite, and must be content to do 
so under the denominations of Cinuuerii, Cimbri, 
or Cymri, the latter term being still in existence, 
and borne by the Welsh, their descendants. 

44. Homer mentions a people of the name of 
Cimmerii, in whose country he places his Hell ; and 
there can be no doubt that their name has a con- 
nexion with this circumstance. In Coptic we 
find the word Chemi, in Hebrew Chum, and in 
Arabic Kahm, aU signifying black, which, Avith the 
Persic Ra, the mark of the obhque case, and the 
Sanskrit Jan, a man or person, the common termi- 
nation of nouns ethnical, forms Cuumerian, that is, 
a person living in a high northern latitude, in the 
vicinity of the six months' night which reigns 
within the Polar Circle. That this fact was known 
to Herodotus there can be no doubt whatever, as 
he mentions a race of men dwelling to the north of 
the Argippgei, who slept away six months of the 
year. The modern name of the country is Tartary, 
formed by doubling the Persic word Tar, darkness. 



mmm 



AND THE CELTIC LANGUAGE. 89 

or blackness, with the signification of darkness of 
darkness, whence the Greek Tartarus, a name of 
hell itself. The name of Cimmeria, at an early- 
period, was doubtless one of very wide application; 
but in Herodotus' s time it appears to have been 
restricted to the country known to us as Grim 
Tartary, or the Grimea. He says there are still to 
be found in Scythia walls and bridges, which are 
termed Gimmerian; and the same name is also 
given to a whole district, as well as to a narrow 
sea, that is, to the Gimmerian Ghersonesus and 
the Gimmerian Bosphorus. (Lib. iv. c. 12.) Strabo 
says Homer has pkced the Gimmerians in the 
neighbourhood of Hell, knowing that they inha- 
bited dark and northern regions near the Bos- 
phorus. Perhaps also he was induced to place 
them there by the hatred which all the lonians 
cherish against that nation, for it is pretended 
that the Gimmerians made an incursion into Ionia 
and ^olia in Homer's time, or shortly before the 
period of his birth. (Lib. iii. c. 2.) 

45. As all tradition and all history tend to prove 
that Europe was peopled from Asia, we ought as a 
natural consequence in the early ages of the world 
to find the great stream of emigration running 
steadily from east to west ; but it is obvious that 
while the earth was thinly peopled, and its inhabit- 
ants for the most part in a nomadic or shepherd 
state, that this general fact is perfectly compatible 
with partial expeditions in an opposite direction. 
Strabo has adduced one instance, which I am in- 
duced to mention, as from the great weight justly 



90 

attached to his authority, it is very likely to mis- 
lead, and has in fact misled many modern authors. 
First, he informs us that the Cimmerii at one period 
were very powerful, and complete masters of the 
Bosphorus, which is known by their name. They 
possessed a city there called Cimmerium, which, 
fortified with walls and ditches, and situated in the 
isthmus, commanded the communications of the 
Chersonesus with the continent (lib. ii. c. 2, 3.). 
In another passage he says, as to the Cimbri, what 
is related of them is partly false, and partly pro- 
bable enough. For instance, we cannot admit the 
reason assigned for their wandering life and their 
plundering, by saying that an enormously high tide 
forced them to abandon their peninsula (Jutland, 
or Denmark), since they still possess the country 
they originally occupied. They made a present to 
the Emperor Augustus of the sacred cauldron which 
they possessed, entreating him at the same time to 
grant them his protection, together with an amnesty 
for the past, and returned home after having obtained 
it. After mentioning some improbable traditions 
connected with them, he proceeds to say, the above 
are fables with which Posidonius justly reproaches 
the writers ; and it is not without reason he pre- 
sumes that the Cimbri, in consequence of their 
wandering and predatory life, pushed their incur- 
sions to the borders of the Palus Mseotis, and that 
the Cimmerian or Cimbric Bosphorus took its name 
from them, the Greeks having called the Cimbri, 
Cimmerii (lib. vii. c. 2. 6.). Precisely the reverse, 
I believe to have been the case. The Cimmerii 



mm 



AND THE CELTIC LANGUAGE. 91 

came from a high northern latitude in Asia, as 
their name declares, which is equivalent to that of 
Tartars, and the Crimea or Crim Tartary retains 
both names to this day. Strabo himself has told 
us that Homer placed the locality of his Hell there 
(Tartarus), and sent Ulysses there to consult the 
ghost of Tiresias. The Cimmerian Chersonesus was 
one of the first positions occupied by the Cimmerii 
after they had crossed the Tanais, in their advance 
westward. The name of Cimmerii is not formed 
by the expansion of that of Cimbri, but that of 
Cimbri or Cymri, by the contraction of Cimmerii ; 
and in their European progress the latter entirely 
disappears, while under that of Cimbri they over- 
ran Germany, gave a permanent name to the Cim- 
bric Chersonesus, and associated with the Teutones, 
another general name for the German tribes, in- 
vaded Italy in the time of Marius, destroyed the 
consular army of Manhus and Servilius Caepio, and 
were with difficulty subdued by the exertions of 
that great general. 

46. We have seen Plutarch, in his life of Marius, 
asserting that the country of the Celt^ was of such 
vast extent that it stretched from the Western 
Ocean and most northern chmes to the Palus Mseotis 
eastward, and that part of Scythia which borders 
on Pontus, that is, the country between the Euxine 
and Caspian seas ; but as the authority of Plutarch 
as a geographer does not rank very high, and 
much weight cannot be ascribed to him as an his- 
torian of those early ages, let us endeavour to dis- 
cover some more ancient and superior evidence for 



92 

so interesting and important a fact. And such we 
find in Diodorus, who informs us that there for- 
merly existed a king of Celtica (France ?), who had 
a daughter of such rare beauty and corresponding 
pride, that she despised all the suitors who pre- 
sented themselves as canditates for her hand, until 
Hercules visited the country on his return from his 
wars with Geryon, who became her husband, and 
had by her a son of the name of Galatus, in honour 
of whom his subjects changed their name to Galatae, 
it having previously been Celtse, derived from Celtus, 
another son of the same extremely convenient Her- 
cules, who appears to have been always at hand to 
beget either son or daughter, as circumstances may 
have required, for any country that wanted a name. 
Be that as it may, the Celtas, according to Dio- 
dorus, became Galatae, and consisted of an infinity 
of tribes or nations, some containing as many as 
two hundred thousand fighting men, and some not 
more than fifty thousand ; and his Galatia was far 
from being confined to the limits of modern France, 
for not only the Rhone, but the Danube and the 
Rhine were its rivers ; and after Caesar had crossed 
the latter he was still among the Galatae. Diodorus 
describes his Gauls as possessing a lofty stature, 
red hair, and a fresh complexion, which is precisely 
the portrait that Caesar and Tacitus have drawn of 
the Germans, and nothing can be clearer than that 
they were primarily the same people, derived from 
the great Scythian stock. " The people," continues 
Diodorus, " who dwell to the north of Marseilles, 



P9IP 



AND THE CELTIC LANGUAGE. d'S 

are denominated Celt^, but those avIio dwell to the 
north of France (Celtica), along the ocean and the 
Hercynian forest, as far as the confines of Scythia, 
are called Galatae ; nevertheless, the Romans give 
this name indifferently both to the true Gauls and 
the Celts. Those who dwell to the north, and in 
the vicinity of Scythia, are extremely savage, and 
said to be cannibals, as well as the English and the 
Irish. Every where they have made themselves 
known by their courage and their ferocity, and it is 
asserted that the Cimmerii, who formerly ravaged 
all Asia, and whose name was corrupted, or con- 
tracted into Cimbri, are identical with the Galat^, 
who have been described. They are the people 
who took Rome, pillaged the temple of Delphi, and 
rendered a great part of Europe and Asia (Minor) 
tributary to them." (Diodoncs, lib. v. c. 18. 19, 20, 
21.) If we recollect that the word Celt^e is con- 
tracted from Galatse, we shall discover that the 
account of Diodorus is substantially the same with 
that of Plutarch ; and that the same people were at 
different periods denominated Celtae or Galata9, 
from their milk diet and nomadic life ; and Cim- 
merii, Cimbri, or Cymri, from the high northern 
latitude their ancestors had primarily inhabited. 

47. When Tacitus asserts that the Germans were 
natives of the soil, or what the Greeks expressed by 
the word Autochthones, and the Romans by Abo- 
rigines, it can be regarded as true, only with many 
exceptions and modifications. In fact, in the strict 
and literal sense of the words, it cannot be true in 



94 

any instance, unless we suppose the Divine Being was 
pleased to exert a distinct act of creation, not only 
for the four great divisions of the globe, Europe, 
Asia, Africa, and America, but for every consider- 
able continent and island on the surface of it, — an 
hypothesis which only requires to be stated to insure 
its being rejected by all, as equally inconsistent with 
the doctrines of revelation and the deductions of 
reason. If we take the expression of Tacitus, " na- 
tives of the soil," to mean simply that the Germans 
had been settled in the country so long, that neither 
history nor tradition had preserved any account of 
the period or mode of their coming thither, in this 
sense even it is not true universally, for Tacitus 
himself says, " That the Gauls in ancient times were 
superior to the Germans we have the authority of 
Juhus Caesar, that illustrious historian of his own 
affairs. From what is stated by that eminent writer, 
it is highly pivhable that colonies from Gaul passed 
over into Germany, for, in fact, how could a river 
check the migrations of either nation when it in- 
creased in strength and multiphed its numbers ? 
So weak an obstacle could not repel them from 
taking possession of a country not as yet marked 
out by power, and of course open to the first occu- 
pant. We find accordingly that the whole region 
between the Hercynian forest, the Maine, and the 
Rhine, was occupied by the Helvetians, and the 
tract beyond it by the Boians, both originally GaUic 
nations." (Gennany, c.2S.) 

48. As we find a large portion of Germany occu- 



AND THE CELTIC LANGUAGE. 95 

pied by people originally Gauls, so Caesar himself 
informs us that the Belgae, one of the three great 
divisions of Gaul, were originally Germans, who, 
having crossed the Rhine, had been induced, by the 
superior fertility of the country, to settle in those 
parts after driving out the ancient inhabitants. 
(Ccesar, lib. ii. c. 4.) Is it not obvious, therefore, 
that the Gauls of Caesar, and the Germans of Tacitus, 
if not altogether one and the same people, were yet 
so much intermixed that it is extremely difficult to 
treat of them separately, and that in a variety, 
perhaps in a majority, of instances, what is related 
of the one will also be true of the other ? This is 
the opinion of the judicious Strabo, who expresses 
himself on the subject in the following terms: — 
" After the Gauls, as soon as we have passed the 
Rhine, we meet with the Germans, situated to the 
east of that river. They only differ from the Gauls 
in being taller, fairer, and more ferocious. In other 
respects their figure, manners, and way of life, are 
such as we have described in speaking of the Gauls. 
And I think the Romans have given them the name 
of Germans justly, as if intending to call them true, 
for that is the meaning of the word in the language 
of the Romans." (Strabo, lib. \di. c. 2.) 

49. Strabo appears to have fancied that there was 
some analogy between Ger and Yer, the first syl- 
lable of Germans, and Yerus (Latin), true ; but I 
beheve the etymology is Oriental. According to 
Megasthenes, there were two divisions of the Indian 
philosophers, one distinguished by the name of Brah- 



96 ON THE CELTJS, 

mans, and the other by that of Germanes. Of the 
latter he remarks that they are the most honourable 
who are called Hylohii^ and live in the woods upon 
leaves and wild fruits, clothing themselves with the 
bark of trees, and abstaining from venery and wine. 
They hold communication by messengers- with the 
kings, who inquire of them concerning the causes 
of things, and by their means the kings serve and 
worship the Deity. If Megasthenes really found 
the name Germanes prevalent among the Hindus, 
we cannot be much mistaken in supposing the first 
syllable Ger to be cognate with the Hebrew Yar 
(a wood) ; and when we recollect the vast extent 
of the Hercynian forest, there is nothing extra- 
ordinary in the Germans denominating themselves, 
or being distinguished by their neighbours, the 
Gauls, as Wood-men. 

50. I shall close this Chapter with some account 
of the Celtic language and grammar, and endea- 
vour to illustrate and confirm the Asiatic origin I 
have ascribed to that people by etymologies deduced 
from Oriental sources ; but I must, before entering 
on this subject, premise a few words as to the value 
of the materials to be drawn from this quarter, 
and the weight Ave are justified in ascribing to any 
arguments founded on them. Pinkerton, to whose 
dissertation on the Goths or Scythians I am so 
much indebted, and of which I have made so much 
use, has destroyed the force of all his reasonings 
respecting the Celta3 in a few sentences, though the 
facts he has stated retain all their value, by con- 



wmrm 



AND THE CELTIC LANGUAGE. 97 

vincing us that they all rest on a radically false 
assumption. Speaking of the Pelasgi, he says, 
" they were not Celts because they can be abso- 
lutely shown to be Scythians, a people who ori- 
ginated from the east, as the Celts did from the west ; 
— because the earliest Greek writers describe the Celts 
as confined to the furthest west, whereas Greece was 
surrounded by Scythae; — because the very form 
and structure of the Celtic tongue are as remote 
from the Greek as possible ; the Celts changing the 
beginning of nouns in many inflexions, while the 
Greeks uniformly change the end. What we now 
call the Celtic is half Gothic, owing to the BelgaB, 
Danes, and Norwegians being mixed mth all the 
Celtae in France, Britain, and Ireland, but especi- 
ally in the Highlands of Scotland, where the Celtic 
is the most corrupt ; because the Norwegians were 
possessors of the Hebrides and western coast, from 
the reign of Harold Harfagre about 880, till so late 
as 1263, and their descendants remain to this day. 
The words thought Greek by dabblers in the Celtic 
are all Gothic. But the real Celtic is as remote 
from the Greek as the Hottentot or the Laplandic." 
(page 67.) And again, he (Dr. Percy, the translator 
of Mallet's " Introduction to the History of Den- 
mark") observes, that all the arguments of Cluverius 
and Pelloutier, if they may be called arguments, 
fall under two heads — quotations from the ancient 
Greek and Roman authors, and etymologies of the 
names of persons and places. The latter he con- 
siders first, and well observes " that arguments 

H 



98 

derived from etjrtnology are so very uncertain and 
precarious, that tliey can only amount to pre- 
sumption at best, and can never be opposed to solid 
positive proofs." At the end lie gives specimens 
of Celtic etymology from that insane work, the 
^^ Memoires de la Langue Celtique, par M. Bullet, 
Besan9on, 1 754, 3 vols, folio," from which it appears 
that a man must be a lunatic who founds any thing 
upon a language so loose as to take any impression. 
^' Such are Northampton (North Hampton), from 
Nor^ the mouth of a river, Tan^ a river^ Ton^ habit- 
ation. JSTorthill (North Hill), from Nor^ river, and 
Tyne^ habitation. Ringwood, from Ren^ a division, 
Ciu^ a river, and Hed^ a forest. Uxbridge (Ouse- 
bridge), from Z7c, river, and^rz^, division. — Risum 
teneatis ? Let me add that the Irish, and Welsh, 
and Armorican tongues, the only dialects of Celtic 
we have (for the Highland Gaelic is but corrupted 
Irish), are at this day, and from the earhest MSS. 
remaining, one half Gothic, and a great part Latin, 
OAving to the Romans li\dng four centuries among 
the Welsh, and the use of Latin in Ireland, on the 
introduction of Christianity. The Gothic words 
are so numerous, that Ihre caUs the Celtic, so 
reputed, a dialect of the Gothic — falsely, because 
the grammar and structure, the soul of the lan- 
guage, are totally different : but these Gothic words 
proceed from the Belgse, Saxons, and Danes, being 
intermingled with the Welsh and Irish. For that 
these words did not pass from Celtic into Gothic is 
clear, because all the roots, branches, and relations 



^nWB^^W 



AND THE CELTIC LANGUAGE. 99 

of the words are found in tlie Gothic, but in Celtic 
only single detached words ; as we use the French 
edaircissement^ but not eclair er^ &c. The few words 
pecuHarly Celtic, and of which a glossary by 
a person of complete skill in the Gothic would be 
highly valuable, have so many significations, that 
to found etymology on them is worse than madness. 
In the Irish one word has often ten, twenty, or 
thirty meanings ; gal imphes a stranger, a native, 
milk, a warrior, white, a pledge, a conqueror, the 
belly of a trout, a wager, &c. This must be the 
case in all savage tongues, which must be poor and 
confused. But the Celtic, I will venture to say, is, 
of all savage languages, the most confused, as the 
Celts are, of all savages, the most deficient in under- 
standing. Wisdom and ingenuity may be traced 
among the Samoieds, Laplanders, Negroes, &c. ; 
but among the Celts none of native growth. All 
etymology of names is folly ; but Celtic etymology 
is sheer frenzy. Enough of Celtic etymology ! let 
us leave it to candidates for Bedlam, and go on." 
(Page 101.) With these opinions of Pinkerton 
respecting the CeltaB, it would have been no very 
safe thing to teU him that he was a Celt himself, 
and yet I think there can hardly be a doubt, that at 
a very early period, perhaps ten or twelve hun- 
dred years before the Christian era, that term was 
nearly equivalent to Scythian, and comprehended 
all the inhabitants of Europe, with the exception of 
the great Sarmatian or Slavonic race. 



100 ON THE CELT^, 

51. For the slight knowledge I possess of the 
Celtic, I am indebted almost entirely to a httle 
work of Dr. Prichard's, entitled " The Eastern 
Origin of the Celtic Nations, proved by a compa- 
rison of their Dialects with the Sanskrit, Greek, 
Latin, and Teutonic Languages," 8vo. London, 
1831 ; which appears to me to unite so much re- 
search with so much sound reasoning, that my 
readers will be indebted to me for making all the 
use of it I can. 

There are six dialects of the language deno- 
minated Celtic, five of which still continue to be 
spoken, while the Cornish is preserved in books. 
These six dialects are the Welsh, the Cornish, the 
Armorican, the Irish or Erse, the Gaelic or High- 
land Scotch, and the Manks, of which the three 
former are relics of the idiom of the ancient 
Britons, and the three latter of that spoken by 
the inhabitants of Ireland. {Prichard^ page 24.) 

The circumstances which are most conclusive as 
to the common origin, or, at any rate, the close 
affinity of languages, are perhaps the following 
four — the names of the cardinal numbers, the 
words expressing kindred or relationship, the per- 
sonal pronouns, and the verb substantive. I shall 
make a few observations on each of these, and con- 
clude with giving a hst of Celtic words, and 
pointing out the analogies suggested by them with 
other languages. 



lii.Mi ,. 11 u ,. ,-i.n i iiM.M .mm 



AND THE CELTIC LANGUAGE. 



101 



Erse. 



A en 
Da\ 
Do J 

™ { 

Keathair 

Kuig 

Se 

Secht 

Ocht 

Noi 
Deich 
Fichid 
Deich 

ar 
Hichid 
Kett 



id J 



Welsh. 



Un 
Dau 
Dwy 
Tri -I 

Tair J 
Pedwar "1 
Pedair J 
Pump 
Chwech 
Saith 

Wyth 

Naw 
Deg 
Ugain 

Deg ar 1 
Ugain J 

Cant 



Sanskrit. 



Aika 
Dwi \ 
Dwau _| 

Tri 

Chatur 

Pancha 

Shash 

Saptan 

Ashta 

Navan 

Dashan 

Vingshati 

Tringshat 

Shatum 



Persic. 



Yek 
Du 

Seh 

Chehaur 

Penj 

Shesh 

Heft 

Hesht I 

Nuh 
Deh 
Bist 

Si 

Sad 



Russian. 



Odin 
Dva \ 
Dvie J 

Tri I 

Chetyre 

Pyat 

Shest 

Sem 

Osm "I 

Vosem J 

Devyat 

Desyat 

Dvatzat 

Tritzat 

Sto 



Latin. 



Unus 
Duo 



Tre; 
Tria 



:} 

Quatuor 

Quinque 

Sex 

Septera 

Octo 

Novem 
Decern 
"Viginti 

Triginta 

Centum 



M. Gothic. 



Ains 
Twai 

Thrins 

Fidwor 

Fimf 
Saihs 
Sibun 

Ahtan 

Nihun 
Taihun 
Twaimtigum 

Thrinstigum 

Hund 



Old High 
German. 



Ein. :: 
Tue. 

Thri. 

Fiuuar. 

Finfe. 

Sehs. 

Sibun. 

Ohto. 

Niguni. 
Tehan. 
Tuentig. 

Thrittig. 

Hunt. 



Prichard, p. 38. 



Some of the most remarkable words denoting the 
relations of persons, family, &c. are as follows : — 



Erse. 


Welsh. 


Sanskrit. 


Persic. 


Russian. 


Latin. 


M. Gothic. 


Old High 
German. 


Gean 

Femen 

Fear 

Mathair 

Brathair 

Siur 

Dear 


Brawd 

Nai 
Bachgen 


Jani 
Varaani 

Matri 
Duhita 


Mader 
Braudur 

Dokhter 

Pachahl 
Bach / 


Jena 1 

Mater 
Brat 

Sestra 


Foemina. 

Vir 
Mater 
Frater. 
Soror. 

Nepos. 
Puer. 







The Personal Pronouns m Analogies in other 

Erse are, Languages. 

Me, I, or me Men, Persic. 

Sinu, we. 

Tu, thou JTo, Persic. 

Sibh, ye, or you 1 Tu, Latin. 

Si^^' siie} S® (Latin), him, her. 

Siad, they. 

H 3 



102 ON THE CELT^, 

In Welsh. Analogies in other 

Languages. 
jMi, I. 

Ni, we Anoo, Hebrew. 

Nos, Latin. 
Noi, Italian. 

Ti, thou To, Persic. 

Tu, Latin. 
Chwi, ye or yon. 
Ev, Eve, Evo, ye,yo, E, O, he...O, he, Persic. 

Hoo, he, Hebrew. 

Hi, she ..Hi, she, Hebrew. 

Hwy, they Oo, the termination of the third 

person plui-al in Hebrew and 
Arabic verbs, which is this 
Celtic Pronoun annexed to 
the radical word. 

Hwynt, they The termination of Sanskrit 

verbs in Anti, and of Latin 
in Ant, Ent^ and Unt. 

Dr. Prichard informs us that regular verbs in 
Welsh, besides the infinitive and imperative moods, 
have -^ve distinct tenses, or forms. These are 
two futures, one of which is indicative, and the 
other conditional, or subjunctive; a preterimper- 
fect, preterperfect, and preterpluperfect tense, all of 
which are extant in the verb Bod, to be, and are as 
follows : — 

Welsh. Russian. Persic. 

Future Indicative. Future. Potential Form, Buden. 

Sing. L Bydhav Budu Budemi. 

2. Bydhi Budet Budi. 

3. Bydth Budut Budi. 

Plur. 1. Bydhwn Budem Budimi. 

2. Bydhwch Budete Budidi. 

3. Bydhant Budut Budendi. 

Future Potential. 

Sing. L Bydhwyv. 

2. Bydhych. 

3. Bydho. 
Plur. 1. Bydhom. 

2. Bydhoch. 

3. Bydhout. 



> .1. J If . 1 I' L 



AND THE CELTIC LANGUAGE. 



103 



Welsh. 



Preterimperfect. 


Preterperfect. 


Preterpluperfec 


Sing. 1. Bydhwn. 


1. Bum. 


1. Bhuaswn. 


2. Bydhit. 


2. Buost. 


2. Bhuasit. 


3. Bydhai. 


3. Bu. 


3. Bhuasai. 


Plur. L Bydhem. 


L Buom. 


1. Bhuesym., 


2. Bydhecli. 


2. Buoch. 


2, Bhuesych. 


3. Bydheut. 


3. Buont & Buant. 


3. Bhuesynt. 



I now proceed to give a list of the most remark- 
able words I have observed in going through Dr. 
Prichard's work. The figures refer to the page in 
which they occur. 



33 



46 

47 



61 



Celtic Words. Analogies. 

Pen, head Phinnah (Hebrew), the head, or 

leader of a people. 

Pheni (Hebrew), the face. 

Gur, a man Goor (Hebrew), a stranger.. 

Duw, God Div (Persic), a spirit. 

Divus (Latin), a god. 
Koda, a part, or share ...Quotus, Quota, Latin. 
Pask, Easter Pascha, Greek and Latin. 

Pasques, French. 

Kia, who Qui, Latin. 

Praidh, a prey Prseda, Latin. 

Sororem (Latin), a sister. 

Sosorem, Latin (obsolete form). 

Swasaram, Sanskrit. 



I find in Lanzi's " Saggio di Etrusca," tom. iii. 
p. 600., a Sanskrit S, which might be easily mis- 
taken for a Roman R, and which ultimately lost its 
original character of S and became R, a circum- 
stance which accounts for the frequent changes of 
the two letters noticed by the Grammarians, and 
supports very remarkably Dr. Prichard's conjecture 
as to Sosorem and Sororem in the above instance. 



H 4 



104 ON THE CELTJE, 

Celtic Words. Analogies. 

66 Gean, a woman Jani, Sanskrit. 

Jena, Russian. 
Gune, Greek. 

Femen, a woman Foemina, Latin. 

Vamini, Sanskrit. 
Woman, English. 

67 Athair, father QuereThor (Scandinavian), Jupiter. 

69 Bachgen, offspring Bach (Persic), a child. 

70 Haul, the Sun Hailih, Sanskrit. 

Eelios (Greek), Ele, solar heat. 

71 Nev, sky, heaven Nabhah, Sanskrit. 

Nebo, Russian. 

Di and Dia, a day Dyu, Sanskrit. 

Nos, night Nisa, Sanskrit. 

Notch, Russian. 

Nox, Latin. 
Mor, the sea Mirah, Sanskrit. 

Mare, Latin. 

More, Russian, 

Mer, French. 

Marah (Hebrew), bitter. 
Daiar, the earth Dhara, Sanskrit. 

72 Athair, air Aither, Greek; -^ther, Latin. 

73 Each, a horse Equus, Latin. 

Eshuus, Sanskrit. 

Capul, a horse Caballus, Latin. 

Cheval, French. 

74 Uch, ox Ukshan, Sanskrit. 

Tarw, a bull Tor, Chaldee. 

Tauros, Greek. 

Taurus, Latin. 

Toro, Italian. 

Colommen, a pigeon Columba, Latin. 

Ran, a frog Rana, Latin. 

75 Lhyren, a lily Leirion, Greek. 

Ceir, or Keir, wax Cera, Latin. 

Keros, Greek. 

Braich, an arm Brachium, Latin. 

Ainm, a name Onoma, Greek. 

Lhug, light Lux, Latin. 

Mel, and Mil, honey Mel, Latin. 

76 Dant, a tooth Dantah, Sanskrit. 

Aur, gold Aurum, Latin. 

Aur, hour Ora, Greek. 

Hora, Latin. 
Corn, horn Krn, Hebrew and Arabic (Ra- 
dical letters). 
Cornu, Latin, 
Keras, Greek. 



AND THE CELTIC LANGUAGE. 105 

Celtic Words. Analogies. 

Coron, crown Corona, Latin. 

Cjbhigl, a bed-chamber... Cubile (Latin), a bed. 

Cubiculum (Latin), a bed-cham- 
ber. 

Scaff, a boat Scapha, Latin. 

Wr, and Fear, a man Vir, Latin. 

Win, and Fin, wine Yin, French 

Vinum, Latin. 

Bio, life Bios, Greek. 

Salen, salt Sal, Latin. 

Dor, door Dwar, Sanskrit. 

Thur, German. 
Pairt, part Parte, Latin, abl. of Pars. 

77 Deigryn, a tear Dakruon, Greek. 

Cariad, love Caritas, Latin. 

Righ, a king Raja, Sanskrit. 

Rex, Latin. 

78 Geni, to be born Jan, Sanskrit. 

Maru, to die Mri, Sanskrit. 

79 By w and Beo, to live Bioo, Greek. 

Vy w, to live Vivo, Latin. 

Gwn, know Jna, Sanskrit. 

Wydh, knowledge Yid, Sanskrit. 

80 Todh, knowledge Budh, Sanskrit. 

81 Dearc, seeing Derko, Greek. 

82 Lighim, to lick Lih, Sanskrit. 

Sta, stand Shtha, Sanskrit. 

83 Bod, to be Bhu, Sanskrit. 

Bud (Persic), he was. 

84 Taen, spreading Teino, Greek. 

Tan, Sanskrit. 

85 Jau, a yoke Yuj, Sanskrit. 

p"^ " }- to kiss Kuso, Greek. 

Galw, to call Kaleo, Greek. 

Cleiniaw, to lie Klino, Greek. 

87 Men, a place Meneo, Greek. 

Cam, to love Cams, Latin. 

Credu, to believe Credo, Latin. 

Oil, vast Ail, Hebrew. 

Ala, Sanskrit. 

88 Uchach, higher Uchchah ( Sanskrit), high. 

Maur Mehr (German), more. 

89 Trist, sad Tristis, Latin. 

Dilys, evident Delos, Greek. 

90 Agaws, near Eggus, Greek. 



86 



106 ON THE CELT^, ETC. 

Sucli are the most remarkable words I have met 
with in Dr. Prichard's work ; and though the list is 
not very copious, it is amply sufficient to prove 
that the Celtic language is of the Indo-European 
family as it has been regarded by Adelung, and 
that it has not only much in common with the 
Sanskrit and Persic, the most ancient languages of 
Asia, but with the Greek, Latin, and Mseso-Gothic, 
the oldest written languages of Europe. I feel 
confident that the result of philological inquiries 
will be to diminish the number of supposed original 
and independent languages, and to develop new 
features of resemblance between those which are 
conceived to be the most dissimilar. Pinkerton, 
with his usual dogmatism, and more than his usual 
prejudice, remarks, " The Welsh and Irish tongues 
preserve that soul of language, the grammar, but 
are so mixed with Gothic or German and Latin, 
that Ihre, not knowing the vast dificrence of the 
grammar, pronounces what we call Celtic a dialect 
of the Gothic. In Gothic we have a monument of 
the fourth century — the gospels of Ulphila, a book 
in which the meaning of every word is sacred and 
marked. In Celtic we have no remains older than 
the eleventh century, and the interpretation is 
dubious. The Belg^ commanded both in Britain 
and Ireland, and being a far superior people im- 
parted innumerable words to the Celtic. They 
therefore who derive any English words from Celtic 
only show a risible ignorance, for the truth is that 
the Celtic are derived from the Enghsh." — Disser- 
tation^ p. 195. 



107 



CHAPTER Y. 

ON THE SAUKOMATJE, OR SARMATIANS, AND THE 
SLAVONIC LANGUAGE. 

52. Herodotus, after relating several fables about 
the SauromataB, Amazons, and Scythians, concludes 
his account by supplying us with some geographical 
data, which possibly contain an approximation to the 
truth. He says that the Scythians, who emigrated 
from their native country with the Amazons, whom 
he places near the river Thermodon in Cappadocia, 
and lands after their escape from their Greek con- 
querors at Cremnes, having passed the Tanais, or 
modern Don, marched forward a three days' jour- 
ney towards the East, when they made another 
three days' march toward the North, leaving behind 
them the Palus Maeotis, or modern Sea of Azof, 
until they reached the spot where they took up 
their abode, and still continued to dwell in his 
time. He adds, that the Sauromataa, or descend- 
ants of these Scythians and Amazons, used the 
Scythian language, but that their dialect was im- 
pure, because the Amazons themselves had learned 
it but imperfectly ; a more adequate reason would 
appear to be, that it was mixed with the language 
of Cappadocia, as the Amazons must have been 
singularly bad linguists if they could not contrive 
to acquire the tongue of their husbands. It must 
always have been matter of extreme difficulty to 



108 

define the geographical boundaries of a people in 
the nomadic or shepherd state, except so far as they 
were fixed by some of the great and unalterable 
features of nature — a sea, a broad river, or a chain 
of mountains ; for as the people were perpetually 
changing their abode amidst the vast spaces which 
they traversed without occupying, it was by no 
means easy to select any particular spot which 
could strictly be said to be their country. {Herod, 
lib.iv. c. 110— 117.) 

53. To the Greek geographers, the great moun- 
tain-chain which, commencing with Mount Taurus, 
runs irregularly through a considerable portion of 
Asia, was a prominent object, and they were in the 
habit of denominating countries according to their 
situation either on the one or the other side. At 
the Tanais and the Palus Mseotis, says Strabo, 
commences the part of Asia lying on this side 
Taurus, after which comes the division of ihQ same 
continent lying on the other side Taurus, for Asia 
being cut in two by the continuation of the moun- 
tain-chain of Taurus, which extends from the capes 
of Pamphylia to the shores of the Eastern Sea, inha- 
bited by the Indians, and the Scythians who border 
on them, the Greeks have naturally distinguished 
every thing to the north of these mountains as 
countries within, and every thing to the south as 
countries without Taurus, and consequently all 
that part of Asia in the vicinity of the Palus 
Maeotis and the Tanais belongs to the division on 
this side Taurus. (Liber ii. c. 4. 9.) 



AND THE SLAVONIC LANGUAGE. 109 

54. Beyond the Borystlienes, the modern Dnie- 
per, Strabo places the Rhoxolani, whom historians 
are disposed to regard as the ancestors of the Ens- 
sians. Of all the Scythians we are acquainted with, 
continues he, they are placed farthest north, and 
still are more to the south than the people imme- 
diately beyond Britain. To the north of the Rhoxo- 
lani the climate begins to be uninhabitable on 
account of the extreme cold. The Sauromatas 
situated beyond the Palus Masotis, and the other 
Scythians, even the oriental Scythians, have a more 
southern position than the Rhoxolani. Pythias of 
Marseilles pretends that the last country to the 
north of Britain is Thule ; but modern narratives, 
continues Strabo, make mention of no country 
beyond Ireland (lerne), an island lying to the 
north, but still near Britain, and where the cold is 
so extreme, that it is only thinly inhabited by a 
people absolutely savage and miserable ; and here 
rather, in my opinion, we ought to fix the lunits of 
the habitable world. (Strabo, lib. ii. c. 4. 3.) 

55. It must be admitted that Strabo's acquaint- 
ance with the North of Europe was very imperfect ; 
indeed he himself says in so many words that 
it was by no means easy to describe the countries 
or their inhabitants to the north-east of Germany, 
and that he was doubtful whether the people ought 
to be called Bastarnge, as appeared to be the opinion 
of the majority of geographers, or whether the 
lazyges, the Rhoxolani, or some other nation Hving 
in waggons (Amaxceci), that is, Scythian or Sar- 



no 

matian people, intervened between the borders of 
Germany and the Bastarnae. Nor was it more easy 
to say whether or no these people extended to the 
Northern Ocean, or whether there were in that di- 
rection countries rendered uninhabitable, either by 
the cold or some other cause, or finally to declare 
whether men of another race were placed between 
the sea and Eastern Germany. (Lib. vii. c. 2. 7.) 

56. Indeed the Greek historians and geographers 
furnish us with few materials for treatino^ of the 
SauromataB, or Sarmatians, independently of the 
Scythians, whose language they appear to have 
spoken, and with whom they are confounded. I 
am strongly disposed to beheve that the name Sar- 
matians originally did not so much describe any 
particular people speaking a language peculiar to 
themselves, as the degree of latitude they inhabited, 
and that the term was as nearly as possible equiva- 
lent to the Greek Hyperborean, and quite as inde- 
finite. I find in Persic, as I have remarked in a 
preceding chapter, the words Sarm, Sarma, and 
Sarmi, all signifying cold. Either of these words 
united with the Arabic Hiat, life, and the Sanskrit 
Jan, a man or person (both of which are terminations 
of nouns ethnical of very common occurrence), will 
form by contraction Sarmatian, i. e. one who lives 
in the cold, or inhabits a high degree of northern 
latitude. 

57. It is difiicult to trace the progress of the 
Sarmatians westward from the time of Herodotus 
to that of Tacitus ; but when the latter wrote his 



AND THE SLAVONIC LANGUAGE. Ill 

" Germany" they appear to have occupied Poland, as 
he describes them as the neighbours of the Germans. 
The historian doubts whether the Peucinians, the 
Venedians, and Fennians were to be accounted 
Germans, or classed with the people of Sarmatia. 
The Peucinians, who were also known by the name 
of Bastarnians, bore a strong resemblance to the 
Germans, used the same language, and exhibited 
the same manners, while from intercourse and in- 
termarriage with the Sarmatians they had acquired 
a likeness to them in many particulars. The Yene- 
dians were the counterpart of the Sarmatians, but 
rather more civilized. Tacitus is disposed to regard 
them as Germans, because they had settled habita- 
tions, knew the use of shields, and always travelled 
on foot, while the Sarmatians on the contrary lived 
altogether on horseback, or in waggons ; in a word, 
continued what Herodotus informs us the ancient 
Scythians were, and what the modern Tartars are 
still found to be. The Sarmatians had reduced the 
Gothinians and Osians among the German tribes 
to pay tribute. (Taciti Germ. c. 46.) 

58. Tacitus represents the Sarmatians as mer- 
cenaries, who were at all times ready to engage in 
any war for the sake of pay and plunder. He men- 
tions two great divisions of the nation under the 
names of lazyges and Ehoxolanians. In the reign 
of Yitellius it was debated whether or no they 
should hire the services of the former to co-operate 
with the Koman armies. They offered to bring a 
considerable body of cavalry into the field of which 



112 ON THE SAUROMATJE, 

their force chiefly consisted, but it was feared that 
they could not be safely trusted, and the negociation 
was broken off. During the short reign of Otho a 
body of nine thousand Ehoxolanian horse made an 
irruption into Msesia more in the character of free- 
booters than soldiers, when they were surprised, 
and their retreat intercepted by the third legion 
and its auxiliaries. They were defeated "with great 
slaughter, and Tacitus denies them altogether the 
possession of moral courage ; but they had to con- 
tend with so many disadvantages in the present 
instance that it may be doubted if any degree of 
valour or exertion could have given them the vic- 
tory. (Taciti Hist. lib. i. c. 79.) 

59. For all the knowledge I possess of the lan- 
guage of the Sarmatians, or Slavonians, I am in- 
debted to a work entitled " Josephi Dobrowsky 
Institutiones LingusB Slavica3 Dialecti Yeteris, 
Yindebonse 1822," which informs me that the 
Slavonic alphabet was invented by Cyril, otherwise 
denominated Constantine the Philosopher, the bro- 
ther of Methodius, Archbishop of Hungary and 
Moravia, who translated the Gospel and other 
sacred books, first for the Slavonians of Bulgaria, 
and afterwards for those of Moravia, before the 
year 863 of the Christian era. He adopted the 
letters of the Greek alphabet as the basis of his 
undertaking, borrowing characters from the Arme- 
nian, Coptic, and other languages to express those 
sounds for which the Greek alphabet has no ade- 
quate representative, dropping the Greek or Phoeni- 



AND THE SLAVONIC LANGUAGE. 113 

cian names of the letters, and calling Alpha Az, 
Beta Yjedi, with Buki however interposed, which 
answers to the Latin B. {Dohrowshy^ Gram.^ P- !•) 

60. Some authors have imagined, but apparently 
without adequate grounds, that certain portions of 
Scripture were translated into Slavonic by Jerome 
long prior to the age of Cyril ; but it is certain that 
the use of the Slavonic language in the service of 
the Church was authorized by Pope Innocent lY. in 
the year 1248, and that from this period we must 
distmguish two alphabets, one denominated from 
Cyril and the other from Jerome. That the Slavonic 
Churches were indebted to Cyril and his brother 
Methodius, for the first translation of the sacred 
books can hardly be doubted; but the extent of 
their translations from the Greek into the Slavonic 
is a circumstance by no means so certain ; for while 
some assert with Diocleatis that they translated the 
whole both of the Old and New Testament, and 
adapted the service of mass to the Presbyteries, 
others, relying on the authority of Nestor, are dis- 
posed to limit their exertions to the translation of 
the Gospels, Acts, and Epistles of the New Testa- 
ment, omitting the Apocal}^3se, which is not used 
in the Greek Church ; while from the Old Testament 
they rendered the Psalms only, together with a few 
extracts or lessons from the different books. {Do- 
hrowshy^ Prcef.^ pp. 6, 7, 8.) 

61. At the end of the tenth century the books 
composing the Slavonic liturgy, together with the 
rites of Christianity, were given to the Russians ; 

I 



114 

and in the eleventh century the dukes of that 
nation were the liberal patrons of those scholars 
who were engaged in making translations from the 
Greek into their native tongue. To this period we 
must refer the commencement of the Slavonic 
Chronicles, and about the year 1030 Procopius, an 
abbot of Bohemia, and one of the earliest proficients 
in Slavonic literature, founded in that province a 
monastery of the order of St. Benedict, in which 
the Church service was celebrated in the native 
language ; but the fraternity was soon expelled on 
a charge of heresy, and Idndly received by Wratis- 
laus, Duke of Bohemia, who however vainly solicited 
from Pope Gregory YII. that his people might be 
permitted to perform divine worship in Slavonic. 
{Dohrowsky^ Prcef.^ p. 9.) 

62. The oldest copy of the whole Slavonic Bible 
in the Russian libraries is believed to have been 
written in the year 1499, but of the New Testa- 
ment alone there are manuscripts of the eleventh, 
twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, all of 
which are preserved at Moscow, in the library of 
the Holy Synod. The Editio Princeps of the Sla- 
vonic Bible was printed at Prague in 1519, under 
the direction of a doctor of physic, Franciscus Sco- 
rina, of Polozk. The first volume contains the 
Pentateuch. Three editions are said to have been 
printed prior to the first German Bible of Luther. 
The following are the dates of the subsequent 
editions of the Slavonic Bible, printed in Russia: — 
at Ostrog in 1581, at Moscow in 1663, 1751, 1756, 



AND THE SLAVONIC LANGUAGE. 115 

1757, and 1766, all in folio. In 1759 an edition 
was published in large octavo. The long-disputed, 
but now pretty generally abandoned text of the 
three heavenly witnesses (1 John v. 7.) is found 
neither in the ancient manuscripts, the first Kussian 
or Ostrog edition, nor in those editions of the Acts 
and Epistles which are prior to 1653. That of 
1663 has the passage in the margin, and that of 
1751 and the later editions in the text. {Marshes 
MicJiaelis^ vol. ii. p. 153., &c.) 

63. Of all the languages of modern Europe I 
have hitherto examined none bears more unques- 
tionable evidence of an Asiatic origin, and none 
presents more numerous points of resemblance to 
the Sanskrit, the undoubted mother of the lan- 
guages and dialects of India, than the Slavonic. 
The whole number of the letters, as given in Do- 
browsky's Grammar, consists of forty-three, that of 
the Sanskrit being fifty. Perhaps characters would 
be a more appropriate expression than letters, as 
all are not the signs of distinct or elementary 
sounds ; Zjelo and Zemlja appear to be merely dif- 
ferent modes of writing the same letter (z). — 
Ize, the Greek Eta, and the Latin I, has the 
same sound as the regular Slavonic I; the letter 
Uk, which corresponds to the Latin U, is written 
in three ways ; and Y, in four, two of which appear 
to be peculiar to Poland and Bohemia ; while all 
the characters from Fert (the Greek Phi and the 
Latin F) to Theta, and amounting to no less than 
sixteen, may be regarded as double letters ; so that 

I 2 



116 ON THE SAUROMAT^, 

with these deductions, the real letters or signs of 
elementary sounds would not amount to more than 
twenty, or, at any rate, would not exceed those of 
the English alphabet ; and, in the same way, Wilkins 
remarks that the fifty characters of the Sanskrit 
alphabet ma.y be resolved into twenty-eight letters. 

64. The declension of substantives in Slavonic 
affords an instance of coincidence with the Sanskrit, 
so close and at the same time so peculiar, that it 
could hardly have been the effect of accident, and 
must be regarded as a proof of a considerable simi- 
larity in the genius of the two languages, and a 
presumption of a common origin in the people by 
whom they were spoken. The Sanskrit has eight 
cases of nouns, being two more than Greek and 
Latin, and the Slavonic seven. Of the two peculiar 
to the former one is denominated by Wilkins the 
Implementive, and distinguished by the sign of by, 
or with, and the other the Locative, distinguished by 
in or on ; and of the two peculiar to the Slavonic, 
Dobrowsky denominates one the Local, marked by 
the sign in, and the other the Instrumental or 
Sociative, marked by the sign with. {JDohrow sky's 
Grammar^ p. 462.) 

65. In the old Slavonic we find three genders of 
nouns, — a masculine, a feminine, and a neuter, to- 
gether with a dual number; two declensions of 
masculines, four of feminines, and three of neuters. 
We may observe three conjugations of verbs, with 
two forms, or paradigms, in each; while the ar- 
rangement of the tenses has much in common with 



AND THE SLAVONIC LANGUAGE. 117 

the Hebrew and Arabic; the third person pre- 
terite of the indicative being regarded as the root 
or theme of the verb, and the present tense having 
frequently a future signification. The verb has 
also gerunds and a supine. The formation of the 
passive voice is extremely simple, being merely 
by adding the particle Sa to the active, and these 
passives in form frequently correspond with the 
verbs deponent of the Eomans and the middle voice 
of the Greeks in signification. {Dohr Owsley's Gram, 
p. 394, 395.) 

The pronouns, personal and possessive, with the 
analogies suggested by them with other languages 
are as under: — 

Az, Ego. 

Ti, Tu To, Persic. 

On, Ele On (French), Pronoun Indeter. 

Mi, Nos Ma, Persic. 

Ni, Nos (ace.) Nah (Sanskrit), ace. plur. 

Vi, Vos Vah ditto ditto. 

Oni, Bli On(French).— Ondit,Theysay. 

Svoi, Suns. Sphoi, Sphe, N. and A. Dual of Su (tu), and Ou 
(Ele), Greek. 

The verb substantive in Slavonic, and its analo- 
gies, are as under: — 

Slavonic. Sanskrit. Persic. Greek. Latin. 

Pres. 1 Jesmi, Asmi Am Eimi Sum. 

2 Jese Asi Ai Eis Es. 

3 Jesti Asti Ast Esti Est. 

1 Jesmi (y) Smah Aim Esmen Sumus. 

2 Jeste Stha Aid Este Estis. 

3 Suti Santi And Eisi Sunt. 

Fut. 1 Budu PretBudim. 

2 Budesi Budi. 

3 Budet Bud. 

1 Budem Budim. 

2 Budete Budid. 

3 Budut Budend. 

I 3 



118 ON THE SAUEOMAT^, 

It is worthy of remark that there are three forms 
of the verb substantive to be, in Persic. The first 
from the infinitive Budan, to be, of which Am is the 
first person present ; the second from the infinitive 
Hastan, to be, first person Hastim, which seems to 
be httle more than Est, or Hest, prefij^ed to the 
persons of Budan ; and the third from Shadan, to 
be, of which the first person is Shum, the Latin 
Sum, and the third person plural Shund, the Latin 
Sunt, and the Slavonic Suti, as well as the Sanskrit 
Santi. 

The Cardinal Numbers are Analogies. 

1 Jeden Yek, Persic. 

2 Dva or Dwa Dwau, Sanskrit. 

' \ Traya, Sanskrit. 

4 Chetire Chatnr, Sanskrit. 

5 Patj Pancha, Sansk. ; Penj, Persic. 

6 Sesti , Shash, Sanskrit; Shesh, Persic. 

7 Sedmi Sibun, M. Gotliic ; Septem,Latin. 

8 Osmi Shemen, Coptic. 

Shemonah, Hebrew. 

9 Devati. 

10 Desati Dasan, Sanskrit. 

100 Sto Sat, Sanskrit; Sad, Persic. 

1000 Tisusha. 
10,000 Tma. 

In the following words expressing the relations 
of family, or kindred, it is remarkable that the 
Slavonic appears to be the genuine root, or true 
nominative case, while the other languages exhibit 
that root compounded with the Slavonic Ei, or the 
Persic Ka, the mark of the oblique case. 

1 Mate, mother Slavonic. 

2 Matara Sanskrit. 

3 Mader ,... = .,.. Persic. 



AND THE SLAVONIC LANGUAGE. 119 

4 Meter Greek. 

5 Mater Latin. 

6 Madre Italian. 

7 Muder German. 

8 Mother English. 

1 Brat, brother Slavonic. 

2 Bhratara , Sanskrit. 

3 Brader Persic. 

4 Frater Latin. 

5 Frate Italian (without the final R). 

6 Frere French. 

7 Bruder German. 

§ Brothar Maeso-Gothic. 

9 Brother English. 

In the latter word the discrepancy of the Greek 
Adelphos with all the kindred languages is not a 
little remarkable. 

It now only remains for me to make a list of the 
Slavonic words I have remarked in going through 
Dobrowsky^s Grammar, as being analogous some- 
times more and sometimes less closely to words in 
other languages, and I am induced to be the more 
minute as the Slavonic family of languages appears 
to have excited very little attention in this country ; 
and Webster who, in his Dictionary, has paid more 
notice to the etymology of the Enghsh language 
than any preceding author, is almost the first lexi- 
cographer who has made any use of it. 

Ogni ( Slavic), fire Agni, Sanskrit ; Ignis, Latin. 

Ogani, Illjrian. 

Ohen, Bohemian. 

Ogien, Polish. 

Ogoni, Russian. 

Nos Nasus, Latin. 

Nose, English. 

Ness, a cape, or projection. 

Jami, Edo, to eat Yam, meat, food, Persic. 

Stjani, Umbra Quere, Stygian. 

I 4 



120 ON THE SAUEOMATiE 



Stj ana, Murus Stane, ston e, Scotch and English. 

Shud, Gigas Shud (Hebrew), violence. 

Shadi (Hebrew), Almighty. 
Chil, Integer, Sanus Cliail (Hebrew), integrity, vir- 
tue. 

Tzari, Rex Sar (Hebrew andPersic), a chief, 

a prince. 

Gol, Nudus Galah (Hebrew), to uncover. 

Gusi, Anser Goose, English. 

Kolo, Rota; Kolesa, Rotse Caleche, English. 

Kokoli, Zizania, Tares Cockle-weed, English. 

Neti, Filum Net (English), that which is 

made of threads. 

Vert, Hortus, a garden Yert, green, French. 

Ydova, Vidua, a widow Vidaha, Sanskrit. 

Vedova, Italian. 

Brat, frater Frate, Italian. 

Plami Flamma, Latin. 

Plug, Aratrum Pflug, German. 

Plough, English. 
Plk, Polk, Castra, Agmen, 
Pulk (Polonis), Legio. 
Pluk (Bohemis), Cohors. 

Puk, Croatis and Carniolis Plebs, Turba. 

Folk (English), people, a noun of multitude. 
Prav, Rectus, with De privative.. De, pravitas, Latin. 

Pravda, Justitia Probitas, Latin. 

Mnog, Multus Manag (M^so-Gothic), many. 

Mlat, Malleus Mallet, English. 

]Mlzo, Molzo Mulgeo (Latin), to milk. 

IVIleko, Mliko Milch, German. 

Milk, English. 

IVIrak, Caligo Murk (English), darkness. 

Tma, Tenebrae Tammas (Sanskrit), darkness. 

Nosh Nox (Latin), night. 

Dvere, or Dwere, Janua Thura, Greek. 

Door, English. 
Drevo, or Drewo, Arbor Dru (Sanskrit), a tree. 

Drus (Greek), ditto. 

Dremate, Dormitare Dream, Dreamed, English. 

Dska, Tabula, Asser Desk (English), a writing-table. 

Tolk, Interpretatio, Explanatio Talk, English. 
Trn, Tern, Spina ....Dorn, German. 

Thorn, English. 

Jeltok and Joltok (Russis) 1 ^olk, EngHsh. 

Vitellus Ovi J ' ° 

Sviste, Soror Mariti. 
Svastica, Soror Uxoris. 



AND THE SLAVONIC LANGUAGE. 121 

Slovo, Verbum — a Slovo sunt Slovite, Slavite, et Slava, Gloria. 
Slava, Gloria, the name of the f ^^^^^^^-^^ ^^^ Slavonic, 
race l^ 

fQuere Sleep and Sleepy (Eng.), 
Slip, Slipii, Cgecus ,..-{ from the eyes being shut 

|_ during sleep. 

Stenate, Stenju, Gemere Stenazo (Greek), to groan. 

Stjni, Umbra, Quere Stygian. 

Stin a. Paries, Murus Stane and Stone, Scotch and 

English. 

Stol, Sella Stuhl, German. 

Stool, English. 
Stru, extendere Strew, English. 

r Quere, Stream (English), i. e. 
Strm, Strem, pr^eceps 4 swift water. — Praeceps Anio 

l_ (Horace). 

Str ana, Pars, Regio \ c^ • • ^ }■ Italian. 

' ' ° I btramarsi, to go away J 

K we reject the R, as redun- f Stana (Sanskrit), a place. 

dant, we have \ Istan (Persic), ditto. 

Sestra, Soror ; ope Ra, formatum a Sest. Pa in Persic is the 

mark of the oblique case. (See Jones's Persic Grammar, 

"Works, vol. V. p. 201.). — Sister, English. 

Selk, Sericum Silk, English. 

Skvara, or Skwara Scoria, Latin. 

Sini Sons, English. 

Celo, Frons .Ciglio, brow, Italian. 

Deni, Diem Den, day, English. 

Good den. — Shakspeare (in 
three or four passages). 

Cestota, Puritas Castitas, Latin. 

Castitate, Italian. 
Sini Gigantovi, sons of the Anakims. — Deut. i. 28. 
Glupii, stupidus. 

Glumpak, Croatian Glumpy, English. 

Grob, or Grov, Sepulchrum Grave, English. 

Gorn, OUa. 

Gorn, Chari, Figulus. The Chari is the Persic Kar, maker. 

Grad, Urbs Belgrade, i. e. white city. 

Gruda, Gleba Quere Ground, English. 

Gredo, vado, venio Ingredior, Latin. 

Grk, amarus Quere Kark 1 English ; care, anxiety. 

Cark J That which is bitter. 

Chvela, or Chwele, Mora Weile, German. 

While, English. 
Chlib, Polish ; Chleb, Bohemian ; Hlaib, M^so- Gothic ; Laib, 

German ; Loaf, English. 
Chip, Pilus Quere Scalp, English. 



122 



Cholod, Frigidus ; by contraction, Cold, English. 
Kover, Kovra, Tapes ... Quere Cover, English. 
Kobila, Equa Caballus, Latin. 

Cavallo, Italian. 

Cheval, French. 
Knazi, Princeps, Serb. Knez, Comes ; Quere Knight, English. 
Knega, Liber. The Chinese sacred books are called King. 
Klobok, Pileus ; Kolpak (Rus. and Pol.) ; Kalpak (Turkish), 
a cap. 

Lesha, Faciem Lechi (Hebrew), the cheek-bone. 

Klasen (Croatian), the month of June. 

Klek, Clamor, Yociferatio Clack, English. 

Krm, Korm, Cibus, Pabulum... Quere Corn, English. 

Krujjelia, Circulus apud Ulyrios, Orion. 

Chlib, Chliba, Panis i. e. that which is baked. 

Clibanus (Latin), an oven. And perhaps the Phrygian word 
Bekos, mentioned by Herodotus, has an affinity with the 
English bake. The simple form of the word probably was 
Bek, the os being merely the usual termination added by the 
G-reeks to the words they borrowed from the Orientals. 

Kriok (Russ.), Uncus Crook, English. 

Kizni, Kozni, Insidise Cozen, English. 

Koseter, Stannum Kassiteros ( Glreek), tin. 

Dom Domus (Latin), a house. 

Dim, Fumus Dim, dark ; English. 

Dimmet, twilight ; Provincial. 

Lin Linum, Latin; Linen, English. 

San, Dignitas San (Persic), dignity, law, right ; 

with Edra (Greek), Sanhe- 
drim, i. e. Seat of Law. 

Son Somnus (Latin), sleep. 

Sonno, Italian. 

Sin, or Syn, Filius , Son, English. 

Ad, Infernus Adhas (Sanskrit), the infernal 

regions. 
Hades (Greek), hell. 

Med, Mel Mead (English), honey, wine. 

Ket, Cete Ketos (Greek), a whale. 

God, Tempus ; Russis, Annus... Time without bounds. — Zend 

Avesta. 
The ancient of days. — Daniel. 
Eneh (Copt.), time. "| ^^^^g 
Anihas (Sanskrit), [• ^aT 

time. J 

Cala (Sanskrit), time ; also Siva. 
Chronos (Greek), time ; also 
Saturn. 



AND THE SLAVONIC LANGUAGE. 123 

Bog, Fuga, Cxirsus Quere The river Bog; i.e. that which 

runs. 
Lug ; perhaps the root of the Latin Lucus, a grove. 

Yoi, or Boe, Exercitus Boe (Greek), clamour, Pugna. 

Boen agathos Diomedes. — 
Homer. 

Meci, or Mechi, Ensis Mache, Pugna "I p , 

Machaira, Ensis J ^^®^^- 

Mama Mater, Latin ; Mamma, English. 

Diva, Yirgo Diva (Latin), a goddess. 

Zema, Hyems, winter Zeman (Arabic), time. 

Voda, or Woda, water ; with the Persic Ra, the mark of the 
oblique case — Wodara, by contraction water, English. 

Stroka, Linea Stroke, a line, English. 

Bola, Yola, or Wola, Voluntas... Boule, Boulomai, Greek. 

Volo, Latin. 
The will ; I will ; English. 

Stan, Statio Stan (Sanskrit), place. 

Istan (Persic), ditto. 

Knagina ; princeps femina. This looks like a feminine, formed 
from the German Konig (a king), by transposition ; after the 
analogy of the Latin E.ex, Regina, or rather the Italian Rege, 
Regina. But the Latin Rex I believe to be formed from the 
Hebrew Rosh (head) ; and the Italian Rege from the Sanskrit 
Raja. 

Rebro, Costa. By abstracting the second syllable, which is 
cognate with the Persic Ra, the mark of the oblique case, we 
have rib (Enghsh), the root, or simple form of the word, 
Jevot, Vita ,,.Jivati, Sanskrit. 

Vivit (Latin), he lives. 

Nagota, Nuditas Naked, nakedness ; English. 

Sitosti, Satietas Satis (Latin), enough. 

Vinopiisa, Potator Vini Vinum (Latin), wine. 

Pio (Greek), to drink. 

Ovsa Ovis (Latin), a sheep. 

Visnii, excelsus, altissimus Quere, Vishnu, Sanskrit. 

Piri, Favilla Pur (Greek), fire. 

Jivu, for Jiju, Vivo Jivami, Sanskrit. 

Vivo, Latin. 

Budu, for Buju, Ero Budan (Persic), to be. 

Mogu, Possum Mag, Possum, Masso-Gothic. 

May, English. 
Snate, or Sniate, congregare . . . Sinayat (Arabic), the whole. 

Senatus (Latin), an assembly. 

Pre-Plavati, Pernavigare Plivat ( Sanskrit), he who floats. 

Pre-vishnii, ante secula Quere, Vishnu, Sanskrit. 



124 ON THE SAUROMAT^ 



Predez-brannie, prae-electus ...Brina (Sanskrit), chosen. 
Pol, Ripa, a bank, a shore Pul (Persic), a bridge, an inn. 

Quere. — Will either of these words account for the Pol, of 
perpetual occurrence in Cornwall ? 

Brema, Bremia, or Bremia 1 rp -o a ^ '4. 

Breme, Serbis ...| -Tempus, Brama, Sanskrit. 

Bramanyah, the planet Saturn. 

Note. — It is remarkable that the earliest names of Deity 
in almost every language appear to have been at the same 
time names of the sun, or words signifying time or 
eternity. 

Vena, or Vina, wine Vinum, Latin. 

Vino, Italian. 

Vin, French. 

Oko tvoe, Oculus tuus Occhio, an eye, Italian. 

Sia, she Essa, Italian. 

Pinazi, pence Pennies, English. 

Vik, JEtas, Seculum Vixit (Latin), he lived. 

Vsa, or Bsa, omnia Pas, Pasa (Greek), all. 

Svit, or Swit, Lux, light Swita (Sanskrit), white. 

Nesh, Egenus Enosh (Hebrew), a poor man. 

Jeni, Mulieres, Plur Gunai (Greek, Plur.), women. 

^^. I cannot close this brief and imperfect ac- 
count of the Sarmatians, or Slavonians, and their 
language, without making a few remarks on the 
light which some of these Slavonic words throw on 
the formation of the verb, its tenses, and its mode 
of signification. First, I find in Slavonic the noun 
substantive Jevot, life, and am impressed with 
its very close resemblance to the Sanskrit verb 
Jivati, he lives. On referring to that verb in Wil- 
kins's Sanskrit Radicals, I discover that its Dhato or 
root is Jiva. These Dhatos or simple roots are said 
not to be significant, in a great majority of in- 
stances, a point respecting which I am extremely 
sceptical ; but there can be no doubt in the present 



AND THE SLAVONIC LANGUAGE. 125 

instance, as I find the Sanskrit word Jivah as a 
noun substantive, with the signification of life. 
Jiva, therefore, signifies Hfe, and Jivati, he lives. 
How is the alteration produced ? I find in the 
Chinese spoken language (which abounds with 
Sanskrit and Persic words) that Ta signifies he or 
him, and can hardly doubt that the change from 
the character of a noun to that of a verb is 
efi*ected by the addition of this pronominal par- 
ticle, which coalescing with the Sanskrit word Jiva, 
appears again in Slavonic as the noun substantive 
Jevot. Again, the termination of the third person 
plural of the Sanskrit verb is Jiv-anti, they live ; 
and finding in Celtic (a term of such wide exten- 
sion as to be almost commutable with Scythian) 
the pronoun Hwynt, they, I cannot doubt that this 
pronoun forms the termination not only of Sanskrit 
verbs in anti, but of Latin in ant, ent, and unt. 
By accounting for the Sanskrit Jivati, I account at 
the same time for the Latin A^ivit, he lives. But in 
the past tense of that verb we find Yixit, which I 
conjecture to be formed from the Slavonic root Yik, 
aetas, seculum, with a pronominal termination, its 
meaning of he lived being fixed by prescription, in 
the same manner as that of the words Vita, life, 
Yivit, he lives, and the great body of the words in 
the Latin and every other language, their meaning- 
being perfectly arbitrary, and there being no reason 
in the nature of things why Mors should not have 
signified life, and Yita death, or Albus black, and 
Niger white. We know that precisely the reverse 



126 ON THE SAUROMAT^, ETC. 

is the case, but why it is so we neither know nor 
can pretend to understand, and the attempt to do 
so is essentially unphilosophical. It would be a 
most absurd waste of time and labour to inquire 
why the Chinese word Ta signifies he or him, or the 
Celtic word Hwynt they; but by no means so to in- 
vestigate the modification of meaning produced by 
the addition of these words as terminations to roots, 
respecting the signification of which there cannot 
be any reasonable doubt. 



127 



CHAPTER YL 

ON THE MASSA-GETtE, GET^, MYSIANS, M^SO-GOTHS, 
OH GOTHS. 

67. DiODORUS, in his sketch of the origin of the 
Scythians, describes them as occupying originally 
a very limited territory, and as acquiring eventu- 
ally by their valour a vast extent of country and a 
great name in war. Their earliest abode, according 
to him, was along the banks of the river Araxes, 
and they were despised for the paucity of their 
numbers, when one of their kings, remarkable for 
his military talents, made himself master of the 
mountains which are in the vicinity of Caucasus, 
and of the vast plain which extends from the ocean 
to the Palus MaBotis and the river Tanais. Their 
fables relate that there formerly resided among 
them a female, who was the daughter of the earth, 
the upper part of whose body had the form of a 
woman, while that below her girdle was in the 
shape of a serpent. Jupiter fell in love with her, 
and had by her a son named Scythes, who having 
afterwards acquired great celebrity bequeathed his 
name to the nation of the Scythians. Among his 
descendants were two brothers remarkable for their 
excellent qualities, whose names were Palus and 
Napes, and who, having divided the kingdom be- 
tween them, gave a denomination to the Scythian 



128 ON THE MASSA-GET^, GET^, 

people, who from them were called Palusians and 
Napesians. About Palus we hear no more, unless 
we choose to suppose that his name, with the addi- 
tion of the Greek word Ge, earth, has some con- 
nexion with Pelasgians, whom in the next chapter 
we shall confidently trace to Scythia; and Pliny 
mentions the Napesians only to inform us that 
they became extinct. At a subsequent period, 
however, warhke monarchs of the same race ex- 
tended their conquests beyond the Tanais, as far as 
Thrace, and in another direction even to Egypt 
and the river Nile. Having thus subdued vast 
provinces to the right and the left, the empire of 
the Scythians received a prodigious augmentation, 
and finally comprised the whole extent of country 
between the Eastern Ocean, the Caspian Sea, and 
the Palus M^otis. The increase of population fully 
kept pace with the augmentation of territory ; and 
the Sac^, the Massa-Getae, the Arimaspians, and 
many other nations, were the descendants of the 
Scythians. (Diodorus^ hb. ii. c. 26.) 

68. Caucasus, says Herodotus, terminates that 
part of the Caspian Sea which extends to the west ; 
on the east it is bounded by a plain of prodigious 
extent, a considerable part of which forms the 
country of the Massa-Getse. In their food and 
clothes this people resembles the Scythians. They 
fight on horseback and on foot, and excel in both 
modes of warfare. Their weapons are spears, ar- 
rows, and battle-axes ; and they make much use 
both of gold and brass. Of this latter metal they 



MYSIANS, M^SO-GOTHS, OR GOTHS. 129 

fabricate their spears, the points of their arrows, 
and their battle-axes, while their helmets, their 
belts, and their breast-plates, are adorned with 
gold. They bind also a plate of brass on the chests 
of their horses, whose reins, bits, and other harness 
are plated with gold. They use neither iron nor 
silver, a circumstance the more easily accounted 
for, that neither metal is indigenous to their 
country. (Lib. i. c. 204. and 215.) 

69. At a subsequent period we find the Massa- 
Geta3 spoken of by one of their names only — as 
Mysians or Getse, for there can be little or no doubt 
that they are the same people. Herodotus describes 
an incursion of the Mysians and Teucrians before 
the Trojan war, in which these nations, passing 
over the Bosphorus into Europe, subdued all the 
inhabitants of Thrace, advanced to the Ionian Sea, 
and thence as far south as the river Peneus; 
and Thucydides, describing the Getas beyond Mount 
H^emus, says, that they border on the Scythians, 
wear the same habihments of war, and like them 
fight with the bow on horseback. 

70. Strabo informs us that the Greeks regarded 
the Getae as a branch of the Thracians, and says 
further, that the people of that name, occupying 
both sides of the Danube as well as the Mysi, who 
in his time were denominated Msesi, were equally 
Thracians. From the latter sprung those Mysians 
Avho, at the period when Strabo wrote, occupied 
that portion of Asia Minor situated between the 
Lydians, the Phrygians, and the Trojans. The 

K 



130 ON THE MASSA-GET^, GETiE, 

Phrygians themselves, continues our geographer, 
are only Bryges, a Thracian people, as well as the 
Mygdonians, the Bebryces, the Maedobithyni, the 
Bithyni, the Thyni, and the Mariandyni, as I sup- 
pose. Out of all these people which passed into 
Asia, the Mysi are the only ones still subsisting in 
Europe ; no trace remains of the others. (StrabOy 
lib. 7.) 

71. Michaelis commences his account of the 
Gothic Gospels, by remarking that the Goths, to 
whom the subject relates, were not only a race dis- 
tinct from the Goths of Sweden, but derived not 
even their origin from that country, that their an- 
cient habitation was to the east of the Borysthenes, 
but that, wandering gradually westward towards the 
provinces of the Roman empire, they at last settled 
in Wallachia. The two principal authorities for 
the account of the irruptions of the barbarous 
nations who overran and eventually destroyed the 
Roman empire are Jornandes and Procopius. The 
former was a Goth, and bishop of Ravenna in Italy, 
but where he was born I cannot ascertain. The 
second was born at Csesarea, in Palestine, and 
secretary to the celebrated Belisarius. It must be 
recollected that east and west, north and south are 
relative terms. 

" Ask Where's the North ? at York 'tis on the Tweed — ■ 
In Scotland at the Orcades, and there 
At Greenland, Zerabla, or the Lord knows where." — Pope. 

To Procopius certainly, and probably to Jornan- 
des also, the Northern Sea was the Euxine, but to 



MYSIANS, MiESO-GOTHS, OE GOTHS. 131 

the chroniclers of Europe of the middle ages, the 
Northern Sea was the Baltic, and they appear to 
have applied to the latter what had been related by 
Jornandes and Procopius of the former. The best 
edition of Jornandes and Procopins, or, at any rate, 
that most generally read, was published by Grotius, 
together with the History of the Lombards, by 
Paul Warnefrid, better kno^vn by the name of 
Paulus Diaconius. This historical collection was 
dedicated by Grotius to Christina of Sweden, and 
prefaced by a long and declamatory rather than 
accurate and logical introduction, which, contrary to 
the usual practice of that excellent man and pro- 
found scholar, is written altogether much more in 
the spirit of flattery than of truth. Forgetting, in 
this instance, his usual care and caution, he has 
adopted, mth little examination, the relations of 
the triumvirate of historians, and made them as it 
were a pedestal for exalting the antiquity, glory, 
and grandeur of the northern nations. The great 
name of Grotius has given such a currency to these 
accoiuits, that they have passed uncanvassed and 
unquestioned from that period, and his interpreta- 
tion of them has been universally acquiesced in ; 
they even raised little suspicion in the mind of 
Gibbon, notwithstanding his habitual spirit of scep- 
ticism and confirmed and determined practice of 
investigation. Wonder, indeed, was occasionally 
expressed, even by the most credulous, how those 
countless swarms, which overran the Roman em- 

K 2 



132 ON THE MASSA-GET^, GET^, 

pire, could come out of the little kingdoms of 
Sweden and Denmark, which themselves hardly 
appear to have been peopled, reasoning by analogy 
from Tacitus' s account of Germany ; and grounds 
enough there certainly were both for wondering and 
doubting. I have already stated the reasons which 
induced me to believe that the term Scandinavia 
was co-extensive and synonymous with that of 
Scythia ; that it comprehended the whole of Asia 
north of Taurus, Caucasus, and Himalaya, the 
Euxine and the Caspian Seas; that it derived its 
name from Scanda, one of the denominations of the 
Indian Mars ; that the Odin, or Woden, the supreme 
God of the nations of nothern Europe, was never a 
man, but no other than the Hindu Budha, one of the 
thousand names of the Sun in the languages of 
Asia ; so that there is no further cause for astonish- 
ment whence the multitudes came who overran and 
changed the whole face of Europe, or why the lan- 
guages of Asia should be found to have exerted so 
powerful an influence on those of our continent. 

72. In the fourth century that branch of the 
great Gothic stem, which will now engage our par- 
ticular attention, was settled in WaUachia. During 
their residence in that country, a translation of 
the whole of the Bible into their native tongue 
was undertaken and completed by their celebrated 
Bishop Ulphilas, whose name is variously written 
by the Greek and Roman authors, Yulphila, Ur- 
phila, Gilphula, and who is also said to have in- 
vented the Gothic alphabet, which, with the ex- 



OR GOTHS. 133 

ception of a few letters, does not differ materially 
from the Greek. Ulphilas is said to have been by 
birth a Cappadocian, to have lived in the time of 
the Emperors Yalens and Yalentinian, and to have 
been employed by his countrymen in an embassy 
that took place in the year of the Christian era, 378. 
{Marshes Michaelis, vol. ii. p. 130.) 

73. The manuscript from which we derive almost 
all our knowledge of the Maeso-Gothic was dis- 
covered in the abbey of Werden in Westphalia, 
from which place it was brought to Prague, Avhere 
it fell into the hands of the Swedes. After lying 
some time in the library of Qiieen Christina, it un- 
accountably disappeared, and was again brought to 
light in the Netherlands, It has been supposed by 
some that Isaac Yossius received it as a present 
from the queen ; by others, that he brought it away 
by stealth; but, however this may have been, it 
was repurchased for 600 dollars by Magnus Gabriel 
de la Gardie, who presented it to the University of 
Upsal, where it remains at present. 

This celebrated manuscript, generally known by 
the name of the " Codex Argenteus," contains the 
four Gospels, though not without many considerable 
chasms. It is written on vellum, and has received 
the epithet of " Argenteus " from its silver letters, 
but the initials are golden. The deep impression 
of the strokes renders it probable that the letters 
were either imprinted with a warm iron, or cut 
with a graver, and subsequently coloured, and in 

K 3 



134 ON THE MASSA-GET^, GET^, 

many instances the indentation of the letters has 
made them legible where the colour has failed. 
When this book was first discovered it was bound 
very irregularly, but Junius arranged it in the 
order in which we find it at present. Some ad- 
mirers of this manuscript, in the ardour of their 
zeal, have maintained that it is the very copy which 
Ulphilas wrote with his own hand ; a circumstance 
highly improbable in itself, and which is clearly 
disproved by Ihre's having discovered several va- 
rious readings in the margin, which implies the 
existence of several earlier transcripts. 

A third edition of this Gothic version was printed 
at Stockholm in Latin letters, in 1671, but with 
many inaccuracies, as well as the two which pre- 
ceded it. The Swedish Archbishop Benzehus, who 
was head-hbrarian at Upsal, devoted many years to 
the study of the "Codex Argenteus," but after 
having made a more correct copy of the text, toge- 
ther with a Latin translation, and prepared the 
whole for the press, he was prevented from giving 
it to the world by his death, which happened in 
1743. The task which he had undertaken was 
completed by Lye, who prefixed a short but able 
introduction, and likemse a Gothic Grammar, under 
the following title : " Sacrorum EvangeHorum Ver- 
sio Gothica, ex Codice Argenteo emendata atque 
suppleta, cum interpretatione Latina, et annota- 
tionibus Erici Benzelii, non ita pridem Arche- 
piscopi Upsaliensis. Edidit, observationes suas 



MYSIANS, M^SO-GOTHS, OR GOTHS. 135 

adjecit, et Grammaticam Gothicam praemisit Ed- 
wardus Lye, A. M., Oxonii e Typographeo Claren- 
donianOj 1750." In this edition, which is printed 
with Gothic letters, numerous errors of the preced- 
ing are corrected, and many of the various readings 
with which the Gothic version furnishes the Greek 
Testament are marked in the notes. 



k 4 



136 EARLIEST INHABITANTS OF GEEECE, 



CHAPTEK VIL 

ON THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS OF GREECE — THE 
PELASGI. 

74. PiNKERTON, in his learned and able disserta- 
tion on the Origin and Progress of the Scythians, 
or Goths, remarks that many of the most important 
facts in ancient history were recovered after the 
time of Herodotus by writers who lived in the 
countries where they happened; and though I 
believe that by far the larger part of these pre- 
tended recoveries are palpable forgeries, still there 
is a point of view in which we are more favourably 
situated than the Greeks and Romans were for 
illustrating the early antiquities of nations, even 
those of their own, as we can demonstrate that 
much of what has hitherto been received as his- 
tory, or the real transactions of men, is indis- 
putable mythology, or the fabulous accounts of 
imaginary beings, who were erected into Gods by 
the invention of the poet, and have no other exist- 
ence. One of the principal reasons why we stand 
on higher ground than the ancient classical writers 
is, that the progress of philological knowledge has 
made us acquainted with many languages of which 
they were altogether ignorant, rendered many ety- 
mologies perfectly clear which they could not pos- 
sibly comprehend, and, by enabling us to ascend to 



THE PELASGI. 137 

the fountain-head of many of the obscure traditions 
which prevailed among them, to account for their 
origin and explain their nature. The nations of 
modern Europe, familiarly acquainted with the Old 
Testament history, deduce the origin of the human 
race from Adam, in the first instance, and from 
Noah and his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japhet, 
in the second, who were preserved in an ark from 
the waters of an universal flood. lapetus, who 
has nothing in common mth the Scripture Japhet 
but the name, was the Adam of the Greeks and 
Romans, beyond whom they could not go, some 
accounts making him the son of Coelus and Terra, 
that is, of Heaven and Earth ; and others, of Tar- 
tarus and Terra, that is, of Hell, or the quality of 
darkness personified. This fable appears to me to 
be essentially Indian, and susceptible of illustration 
from the Sanskrit language. The etymology of 
lapetus I take to be JaA, one of the names of 
Siva, or Gala, the Indian Satu.rn, or Chronos, Pati^ 
Lord, and a Greek or Latin termination, os or us^ 
by contraction lapetus. As he is the Hindu Saturn 
we need not wonder that the Greek and Roman 
writers know little about him except his name. A 
passage occurs in Homer, however, in which he 
is mentioned in connection with Saturn, and in a 
bad sense. 

" Fly if thou wilt to earth's remotest bound, 
Where on her utmost verge the seas resound ; 
Where curs'd lapetus and Saturn dwell, 
Fast by the brink, within the streams of hell ; 



138 



No sun e'er gilds the gloomy horrors there, 
No cheerful gales refresh the lazy air. 
There arm once more the bold Titanian band, 
And arm in vain, for what I will shall stand." 

Pope's Homer's Iliad^ book viii. 597. 

75. Such was lapetus, and Ms eldest son was 
Atlas, which is merely a translation of Coelus, the 
name of his reputed father, into Arabic, for the 
word Atlas in that language signifies both Heaven 
and a Sphere, which accounts for the Greek mytho- 
logical account of his supporting the Heavens on 
his shoulders. A much more celebrated son, how- 
ever, was Prometheus, the subject of one of the 
darkest, most contradictory, and most unintelli- 
gible of the Greek fables, and the hero of three of 
the tragedies of ^schylus. In the " Prometheus 
Vinctus," the only one that has been spared by 
time, he is described not merely as stealing fire 
from heaven, but as creating man. In the opening 
speech Strength says, — 

" At length then, to the wide earth's extreme bounds, 
To Scythia are we come, those pathless wilds 
Where human footsteps never mark'd the ground. 
Now Vulcan to thy task ; at Jove's command 
Fix to these high-projecting rocks this vain 
Artificer of man ; each massy link 
Draw close, and bind his adamantine chains. 
The radiant pride, the fiery flame^ that lends 
Its aid to every art he stole, and bore 
The gift to mortals ; for which bold offence 
The gods assign him this just punishment." 

And again, at line 89, Strength addressing Pro- 
metheus says, — 



THE PELASGI. 139 

" Now triumph in thy insolence ; now steal 
The glory of the gods, and bear the gift 
To mortal man : will they relieve thee now ? 
False is the boasted prudence of thy name, 
Or wanted now to free thee from thy fate." 

To the Greeks, the etymology of the name of Pro- 
metheus was n^jo^Tj^T]^, " providus, circumspectus," 
but I regard the origin of the fable as Indian, and 
the name as Sanskrit, from Pura, before, corre- 
sponding with the Greek Pro, and the Latin Prae, 
Math, he who excites fire by friction, and os^ and us^ 
the common Greek and Latin terminations, which 
they added to almost all the oriental words they bor- 
rowed, by contraction Prometheus, or he who first 
produced fire by friction. According to one of the 
fragments of Menander, the crime of Prometheus 
consisted not in stealing fire, but in forming 
woman, and according to another still more extra- 
ordinary, printed among the fragments both of 
Euripides and Philemon, Prometheus is said to 
have been not only the creator of man, but of all 
the race of animals of every species. This circum- 
stance clearly removes him from being one of the 
human race ; and following up this idea, we dis- 
cover ample reasons for believing that his cha- 
racter as a God was recognized by many of the 
Greek people, and temples, altars, and statues 
erected to his honour. A well-written and ela- 
boraite article by Monsieur le Beau in the " Choix 
des Memoires de 1' Academic Eoyale des Inscrip- 
tions et BeUes Lettres," entitled " Memoire sur les 
Tragiques Grecs " says, we learn from Sophocles 



140 

that the territory of Colona was consecrated to 
Prometheus ; and his scholiast remarks, after Apol- 
lodorus, that in the academy Prometheus was 
honoured mth Minerva as well as Yulcan ; that he 
had a temple in the wood of the goddess, and that 
at the entrance there was an ancient pedestal, on 
which were erected the statues of Prometheus and 
of Yulcan. Prometheus was represented with a 
sceptre in his right hand, and as the elder of the 
two ; Yulcan appeared to be younger. This fact is 
supported by the testimony of Pausanias, who says 
that Prometheus had an altar in the academy 
itself, and that games were instituted in his honour, 
which consisted in running from the altar to the 
city with torches, which it was necessary to pre- 
serve lighted. The Athenians then had placed 
Prometheus in the number of the gods, and JEschy- 
lus composed three tragedies in his honour, which 
contained the three most interesting circumstances 
of his life, and which were probably acted at some 
of his feasts. (Tome iii. page 251.) As lapetus 
was a name of the Hindu Siva, Chronus, or 
Saturn, and Prometheus was his son, we cannot be 
much mistaken in regarding Prometheus as one of 
the innumerable Asiatic names of the sun, and as 
having more in common with the benevolent Jupiter 
of the Greek and Roman mythology, than with 
any other god in their Pantheon ; and we cannot 
but remember that he is uniformly described as the 
friend of man, and suffering for services rendered 
to man, punishment inflicted by some other deity 



•«p^^^^ 



THE PELASGI. 141 

more powerful than himself, but neither just nor 
beneficent. 

76. After these preliminary remarks, I proceed 
to point out the connexion between the fable of Pro- 
metheus and the earliest inhabitants of Greece. Ac- 
cording to the Scholiast on the Argonautics, of 
ApoUonius Rhodius, 1. 1252, Prometheus was king 
of the Scythae, (FinJcerton, Dissertation, page 74,) 
and according to Lucian, De Dea Syra, his son 
Deucalion was a Scythian. (Pinkerton, page 73.) 
Hellen, the son of Deucalion, had three sons by his 
wife, — Orseis, JEolus, Dorus, and Xuthus. But 
Xuthus in Greek characters is written with the 
double letter Xi, which, if we analyse into its ele- 
ments or component parts, wiU be found to consist 
of the two simple, or single letters Kappa, Sigma,, 
or Ks, which transposed, as they must frequently 
have been in the Boustrophedon, or oldest mode of 
Greek writing, form Skuthus, a Scythian ; so that 
according to the involuntary confession of the 
Greeks themselves, their account of the origin of 
their language, and its dialects, is pure mythology, 
unworthy of a moment's attention, as if Xuthus 
was a Scythian, his brothers ^olus and Dorus must 
have been equally Scythians, as well as Ion his 
son, the founder of the Ionic, or old Attic race. 
The whole fabric of early Greek philology is swept 
away at one blow, and we have to look about for a 
new foundation on which to erect another. 

77. The principal Greek authors, in whatever 
other respects they may differ, agree that the 



142 EARLIEST INHABITANTS OF GREECE, 

Greeks of every dialect and race were derived 
from the Pelasgi, so that our only chance of getting 
at the truth is by collecting and concentrating the 
lights scattered throughout the Greek classics 
respecting this early people. ^Eschylus, in his 
" Supphcants," makes Pelasgus contemporary with 
Danaus, and Egyptus, and puts the following 
speech in his mouth, which is addressed to the 
Chorus : — 

" Nay, answer me, and speak with confidence ; 
Pelasgus bids you sovereign of this land : 
My sire Palgecthon, of high ancestry. 
Original with this earth : from me their king 
The people take their name, and boast themselves 
Pelasgians. O'er a wide extent of land 
Through which the Algus flows, and Strymon west, 
From the Perrhoebians o'er the sacred heights 
Of Pindus to Pseonia, and beyond 
The mountains of Dodona, spacious realms, 
My empire stretches, bounded by the sea 
This way. In ancient time the Apian plains 
From Apis drew their honour'd name, the son 
Of Phoebus, in his father's healing arts 
Skill'd : from Naupactus came the heaven-taught sage 
And clear'd the land of that pestiferous brood. 
Which the moist earth, foul with corrupted gore 
Of old engender'd, fierce with dragon rage, 
A cruel neighbourhood ; their horrible pride 
The matchless Apis quell'd, and freed the land 
Of Argos. Hence in sacred reverence 
We hold his memory." — Potter's ^schylus^ line 273. 

From this we learn that Pelasgia was a name not 
only of all Greece, but apparently of Thrace also, 
the country through which the rivers Algus and 
Strymon flow. Thrace was frequently confounded 



THE PELASGI. 143 

with Scythia ; and as Herodotus informs us that 
the name of the earth in the language of Scythia 
was Apia, we shall, perhaps, feel disposed to 
doubt if Apia, the ancient name of Peloponnesus, 
was not imposed by Pelasgians in honour of the 
earth as a goddess, and if those Pelasgians, like 
Prometheus, Deucalion, and Xuthus, were not Scy- 
thians. At whatever period the name of Apia was 
first given to Peloponnesus, it continued to be 
current until the Iliad was written, as it occurs in 
the first book of that poem. 

78. In the catalogue of ships. Homer enumerates 
the Pelasgi among the allies of the Trojans. He 
brings them from Larissa, apparently a fabulous 
city, deriving its name from Larissa, the daughter 
of the mythological Pelasgus, for Larissa in Thes- 
saly formed part of the dominions of Achilles. 
Perhaps the father of Epic poetry, who appears to 
have looked forward to the catalogue with feelings 
of considerable apprehension, was so exhausted 
with his labours when he arrived so near the con- 
clusion of it that he nodded, for a few lines further 
on he mentions the Thracians under Acamus and 
Pyrous, while in the night adventure of Diomed 
and Ulysses he makes Dolon declare that the Thra- 
cians were just arrived under Rhesus, in the last 
year of the war. 

79. One great cause of the doubt and obscurity 
which we encounter at every step of our enquiry 
into the origin and migrations of the Pelasgi, arises 
out of the comprehensive nature of the term, and 



144 EAKLIEST INHABITANTS OF GREECE, 

the extreme looseness with which it is used. In 
the following passage from Plutarch's Life of Romu- 
lus, for instance, it is nearly equivalent to Scythian, 
which, at an early period of the history of the 
world, described all the inhabitants of the north of 
Asia, or Celt, which perhaps described all those of 
Europe. From whom, and from what cause, says 
Plutarch, the city of Rome obtained that name, 
whose glory has diffused itself over the world, 
historians are not agreed. Some say the Pelasgi, 
after they had overrun great part of the globe, and 
conquered many nations, settled there, and gave 
their city the name of Rome, 07i account of their 
strength in war. If we could regard this passage 
as strictly historical, we should feel no hesitation 
about referring the origin of the name of Rome to 
the Hebrew word Room or Rum, mighty ; and as 
the same word signifies high, exalted, it may have 
equally described the position of the city on her 
seven hills ; but as this account is only one among 
a hundred, he must be a very sanguine person who 
could be content to rest an hypothesis on the basis 
of such an etymology. 

80. The information we derive from Herodotus 
respecting the Pelasgi, though it must, on the 
whole, be regarded as possessing more weight 
and authenticity than any other, is, at the same 
time, so imperfect, not to say inconsistent, that it 
is quite clear he possessed no definite knowledge, 
and had no fixed opinion on the subject. The 
Lacedemonians of Doric, and the Athenians of 



THE PELASGI. 145 

Ionian origin, says he, always eminent, were for- 
merly known by the appellation of Pelasgians and 
Hellenians. The former had never changed their 
place of residence, the latter often. Under the 
reign of Deucahon, the Hellenians possessed the 
region of Phthiotis, but under Dorus, the son of 
Hellenus, they inhabited the country called Istaeotis, 
which borders on Ossa and Olympus. They were 
driven hence by the Cadmseans, and fixed them- 
selves in Macednum near Mount Pindus ; migrating 
from hence to Dryopis, and afterwards to the Pelo- 
ponnesus, they were known by the name of Dorians. 
What language the Pelasgians used (continues our 
historian) I cannot positively affirm, but some pro- 
bable conclusion may, perhaps, be formed, by 
attending to the dialect of the remnant of the 
Pelasgians, who now inhabit Crestona, beyond the 
Tyrrhenians (in Thrace), but who formerly dwelt 
in the country now called Thessaliotis, and were 
neighbours to those whom we at present name 
Dorians. Considering these with the above, who 
founded the cities of Placia and Scylace on the 
Hellespont, but once lived near the Athenians, 
together with the people of the other Pelasgian 
towns who have since changed their names, we are 
on the whole justified in our opinion that they for- 
merly spohe a barbarous language (that is, not 
Greek). The Athenians, therefore, who were also 
of Pelasgian origin, must, necessarily, when they 
came amongst the Hellenians, have learned their 
language. It is observable that the inhabitants of 



146 EARLIEST INHABITANTS OF GREECE, 

Crestona and Placia speak in the same tongue, but 
are neither of them understood by the people about 
them. These circumstances induce me to beheve 
that their language has experienced no change. I 
am also of opinion (says Herodotus) that the Helle- 
nian tongue is not at all altered. When first they 
separated themselves from the Pelasgians they were 
neither numerous nor powerful. They have since 
progressively increased, having incorporated many 
nations, barbarians and others, with their own. 
The Pelasgians have always avoided this mode of 
increasing their importance, which may be one 
reason, probably, why they never have emerged 
from their original and barbarous condition. {Hero- 
dotus^ lib. i. c. 56, 57, 58.) 

From these and other passages of Herodotus, 
which unfortunately, however, are neither very 
clear in themselves, nor very consistent with each 
other, we may deduce the following conclusions : — 

1. That the whole of Greece was, at some remote 

period, possessed by Pelasgi, and distin- 
guished by the general name of Pelasgia — 

xaT^sviJLSvrjg. (Lib. ii. C. 56.) 

2. That as we do not know from what country 

they came, except that they came last from 
Thrace, we cannot determine what lan- 
guage they spoke ; but Herodotus has ex- 
pressed his conviction that it was barba- 
rian, that is, at any rate, not Greek. 

3. That therefore Greeks of every name and 



THE PELASGI. 147 

dialect were not indigense, or natives of 
the soil, but immigrants from some other 
country ; and as Xuthus, the father of Ion, 
maybe analysed into Skuthus, there is a 
preponderance of evidence that those immi- 
grants were Scythians, or Celtse, using the 
words as nearly synonymous. 
81. Strabo says, as to the Pelasgi it is pretty 
generally agreed that they were an ancient people 
spread over the whole of Greece, and especially in 
the country of the iEolians bordering on Thessaly. 
But, according to Ephorus, they were originally 
Arcadians addicted to a warlike life, who having 
united themselves with all whom they could engage 
to join them, and to whom they communicated 
their name, became famous not only among the 
Greeks, but in all the countries wherever they 
went. In fact, we see the Pelasgi established in 
Crete, according to the testimony of Homer, since 
he makes Ulysses name them to Penelope. (Odi/ss. 
lib. xix. 175.) Besides, that portion of Thessaly 
which is situated between the mouth of the Peneus 
and Thermopylae and extends to the mountains of 
Pindus, is called Pelasgic Argos, because the Pelasgi 
were formerly masters of it. Many ancient au- 
thors have also described the Epirotes as Pelasgic, 
because the dominion of the Pelasgi extended over 
Epirus. And as those ancients in the same way 
have described a great number of heroes as Pelasgi, 
the moderns have extended the name of Pelasgi to 
the people of whom these heroes had been the 

L 2 



148 EARLIEST INHABITANTS OF GREECE, 

chiefs. It is in this way that the Isle of Lesbos 
has been called Pelasgic, and that Homer has 
described as Pelasgi the people who formed the 
boundary of the Cilicians in the Troade. (Iliad, 
lib. ii. 840.) Ephorus, when he is of opinion that 
the Pelasgi were of Arcadian origin, follows Hesiod. 
He also pretends that Peloponnesus formerly bore 
the name of Pelasgia, an idea which receives sup- 
port from the fragments of the "Archelaus" of 
Euripides. According to Antichdes, the Pelasgi 
first peopled the islands of Lemnos and Imbros, 
and some of them passed into Italy with Tyrrhenus, 
the son of Atys^ and finally, if we can confide in the 
authors of the " Atthis," which treated of the 
Athenian antiquities, there were Pelasgi who re- 
sided at Athens ; and because these people wandering 
in every direction, visited various places in companies 
like certain birds, the indigence of Attica designated 
them by the name of Pelargi. (Strabo, lib. v. c. 4.) 
In another part of his work, in connexion with the 
same subject, Strabo says, " What an undertaking 
it would be if I pretended to investigate who have 
been the principal founders of the Athenian State, 
beginning with Cecrops ! The inquiry would be so 
much the longer, from the circumstance that the 
traditions are far from being in accordance. We 
perceive this from the different denominations of 
the country, which is sometimes called Actice, be- 
cause it is pretended that Actseon reigned there ; 
sometimes Atthis, and Attice, in commemoration, 
say they, of Atthis, the daughter of that Cranaus 



THE PELASGI. 149 

after whom the inhabitants of the country were 
also denominated Cranai; sometimes Mopsopia, 
from Mopsopus ; sometimes Ionia, from Ion, the son 
of Xuthus; and finally Posidonia and Athenae, 
after the two divinities who bear those names ; and 
this independently of what I have remarked else- 
where, that there is every appearance that Pelasgi 
came to settle in Attica, and that the ancient 
inhabitants, in allusion to their wandering mode of 
life, denominated them Pelargi." (Strabo^ lib. ix. 

cl.) 

82. So much for the ancient authorities respect- 
ing the Pelasgi ; and one of the very highest among 
the moderns, Bishop Marsh, the learned translator 
of Michaelis, expresses himself on this subject as 
foUows, at the conclusion of the first chapter of his 
HoraB Pelasgicse : — " After all, then, we must be 
contented with tracing the Pelasgi up to their 
European settlement in Thrace. Beyond that limit 
their history is all conjecture. We may infer, 
indeed, from the known progress of migration, that 
among the ancestors of the Thracian Pelasgi some 
must have been once established in Asia Minor ; 
and Menecrates Elaita, in his work yrspi Ktktscou 
(Strabo^ lib. 13.), asserted that they actually were 
so. We may further conclude that their ancestors 
were once established stiU more to the eastward. 
But Thrace mil still remain the limit of the actual 
knowledge which we possess on the origin of the 
Pelasgi. And it is useful to know the limit; for 
hence we know, when we are arguing about the 

L 3 



150 EARLIEST INHABITANTS OF GREECE, 

Pelasgi, whether we are building on a rock, or 
building on the sand." {Marsh's HorcB Pelasgicce, 
Cambridge, 1815., p. 19.) 

83. We cannot be surprised at finding that this 
accomplished scholar is of opinion that no light can 
be thrown on Grecian antiquities, but what is de- 
rived from Grecian sources ; but if I am not very 
much mistaken, the time is almost arrived when 
some of the seed sown by Halhead, Jones, Cole- 
brooke, and Wilkins, the earliest cultivators of 
Sanskrit hterature, is about to ripen, when the 
existence of new and unsuspected links between the 
west and the remotest east can be demonstrated 
beyond the power of doubt or dispute, when much 
of what is obscure in the mythology of Greece and 
Eome can be rendered clear, and much of what is 
perplexed respecting the origin of the nations and 
languages of ancient and modern Europe receive 
elucidation. In a word, I am of opinion that the 
origin of the Pelasgi may be traced to the banks 
of the Ganges, and their progress thence through 
Scythia, Tartary, or Scandinavia, into Thrace, and 
thence into Greece and Italy. The clue to the 
mystery is contained in a single word, which has 
occasioned so much difiiculty and confusion from 
the circumstance of its being expressed in such a 
variety of languages ; and whoever will take the 
trouble to remark the species of birds arranged 
under the genus Ardea, a heron, will discover the 
leading names of the European Pelasgi, and of the 



THE PELASGI. 151 

Asiatic. I shall now proceed to give as short an 
account as is compatible with clearness. 

84. ScANDA, or Kartikeya, the son of Siva, and 
military deity of the Hindus. 

Navya^ praise, panegyric ; hence Scandinavia, or 
the country which was sacred to the God of 
War under his name of Scanda. 

Scandha^ a king or prmce — war, battle — a 
heron. 

These Sanskrit words, from Professor Wilson's 
dictionary of that language, illustrate a most im- 
portant principle, which I have ventured to dis- 
tinguish by the appellation of homonymy, or simi- 
larity of name. It wiH, I beheve, account more suc- 
cessfully than any other for the origin of the sacred 
character of the various t}^es, anunate and inani- 
mate, which we meet with in the diiFerent religious 
systems of the ancient world, for the sacred annuals 
of India and Egypt, and many of the sacred trees, 
plants, and flowers of Greece and Kome. The 
names of many of the deities of antiquity were 
ineffable, and not to be pronounced without sin, 
according to the ideas of their votaries ; such were 
the Jehovah of the Jews, the Durga of the Hindus, 
and the Ceres and Proserpine of the Greeks. Why, 
for instance, should the myrtle have been sacred to 
Yenus ? We know that it was so, both among the 
Greeks and Komans, but can assign no reason for 
it from any circumstance connected with the lan- 
guage or superstitions of either people ; but when I 
learn from Strabo that the name of Yenus among 

J. 4 



152 EAELIEST INHABITANTS OF GREECE, 

the Armenians, and probably the Persians also, was 
Anaitis, and when I find in tlie list of Pehlvi, or 
ancient Persic words, by Anquetil du Perron, the 
word Anita, myrtle, it appears to me impossible to 
doubt that the myrtle was primarily sacred to 
Yenus, because that beautiful shrub was a phonetic 
type of her name ; and as Europe was peopled from 
Asia, we can easily conceive that this custom once 
estabhshed, and a hundred others of the same sort, 
would be perpetuated by the Greeks and Eomans, 
though the language of neither people contamed 
any clue to their origin. In India, Scanda was the 
name, or rather one of the names of the God of War ; 
Scandha^ in Sanskrit, signifies war, or battle itself, 
and also a heron. A heron, therefore, was re- 
garded as the bird of Mars, for the same reason as 
the myrtle was regarded as the plant of Yenus, 
and, what is singular enough, it appears to have 
been considered as sacred to Minerva in her cha- 
racter of the Martial Maid in the heroic ages of 
Greece ; for in the night adventure of Diomed and 
Ulysses, as they are setting out, she is described as 
sending a heron (Erodios) on their right hand, as 
a good omen, to assure them of her favour and pro- 
tection. But I believe the Pelasgi obtained their 
name of Storks (Pelargoi) for a reason of much 
more wide and general application. As I have 
already remarked, it is highly probable that the 
regions of Southern Asia, China, India, Persia, and 
Assyria, were the primary seats of the human race, 
and the spots which witnessed the earliest progress 



THE PELASGI. 153 

of the arts of civilization. But we have seen that 
the first stage of the human race is that of hunters 
and fishers, and the second that of shepherds. In 
this second they appear to have continued for ages, 
and, indeed, the Arabs and Tartars have never 
advanced beyond it; and here the pressure of popu- 
lation against the means of subsistence is severely 
felt, as the people cannot multiply beyond the 
means of subsistence afforded by their flocks and 
herds, nor the latter beyond the produce of the 
pastures by which they are fed. The operation of 
the principle of population, or the tendency of the 
human race to increase in a more rapid ratio than 
the supply of food increases, first impelled the 
people of Southern Asia to cross the great moun- 
tain chains of Imaus, the Himalaya, Caucasus, and 
Taurus, and when their progress in a northerly 
direction was checked by the intense cold, and the 
refusal of the soil to supply the means of supporting 
life, they turned in a westerly direction, and peopled 
Europe. As the stork is a bird of passage, and in 
the winter withdraws to a more temperate region, 
it was an apt type of all the people in a nomadic 
state, who in the summer advanced to a high 
northern latitude, and retreated at the approach of 
extreme cold. According to the highest authority 
on the subject, the inhabitants of Northern Asia 
are Pelasgi (storks) at this very time. ^' The 
pastoral tribes of Asia," says Malthus, " by living 
in tents and moveable, instead of fixed habitations, 
are still less connected with their territory than the 



154 EARLIEST INHABITANTS OF GREECE, 

shepherds of the North of Europe. The camp, and 
not the soil, is the native country of the genuine 
Tartar. When the forage of a certain district is 
consumed, the tribe makes a regular march to fresh 
pastures. In the summer it advances towards the 
north, in the winter returns again to the south ; 
and thus in a time of most profound peace acquires 
the practice and familiar knowledge of one of the 
most difficult operations of war. Such habits would 
strongly tend to diffuse among these wandering 
tribes the spirit of emigration and conquest.'* 
{Essay on Population^ vol. i. p. 142.) The very 
term Pelasgi, and all its equivalents, must be re- 
garded less as describing a particular people, speak- 
ing a common language, than as synonymous with 
nomades, or migratory shepherds. 
2. KiLAN (Persic), a heron. 

Gilan (Persic), according to Richardson, the 
name of a country and city between the 
Caspian and Euxine seas ; also of a tribe of 
brave men, and of a mountain. Here, 
perhaps, we find the Hindu Scandinavians 
under a Persic name; but it is useless to 
dwell on them, as we do not trace their 
name in Europe. But the connexion be- 
tween Europe and India is certain, though 
many of the intermediate links have dis- 
appeared. Strabo mentions the Bryges in 
Thrace, whom he supposes to have been 
the ancestors of the Phrygians, Herodotus 
the Brygi in Macedonia; and in Wilson's 



THE PELASGI. 155 

Sanskrit Dictionary we kind Vriji, or Briji, 
a country, probably that to tbe west of 
Delhi and Agra, or the modern Bruj. 
3. LiLK (radical letters), Arabic, a stork. 

Laylah^ written by Eichardson as pro- 
nounced : by reading the final Kappa, as 
Gamma, and adding a Greek termination, 
we have 
Leleges^ or storks, i. e. nomades, or a migratory 
pastoral people. 
Their name occurs but once in Homer, and then 
they are mentioned in the same line with the Pelasgi, 
Biad X. 429. ; and there can be little doubt of their 
identity, Leleges being the Arabic, and Pelasgi 
(Pelargoi), the Greek name of storks. Herodotus 
knew nothing about the Leleges ; but by informing 
us that the Carians were formerly Leleges, he would 
lead us to suppose that he regarded the latter name 
as merged, or sunk in the former. Both names, 
however, occur in the passage of Homer above 
alluded to. Strabo says, as to the Leleges, accord- 
ing to some, they were the same people as the 
Carians; according to others, they had nothing 
farther in common with them than arose from the 
circumstance of having resided among them, and 
taken a part in their expeditions ; and, as a proof of 
it, may be alleged, that in the territory of Miletus 
there are places known by the name of dwellings 
of the Leleges, and that in many parts of Caria 
we meet with the tombs of the Leleges, and some 
abandoned fortresses, which still retain the epithet 



156 EAKLIEST INHABITANTS OF GREECE, 

of Lelegian. The whole region, continues Strabo, 
which at present bears the name of Ionia, was 
formerly inhabited by Carians and Leleges, and 
they were driven out by the lonians, who took 
possession of their country. At a still more remote 
period, those who conquered Troy had driven the 
Leleges from the environs of Mount Ida, near the 
rivers Pedasus and Satniois. But what more par- 
ticularly deserves our belief, continues Strabo, is 
the testimony of Hesiod, who says, respecting the 
Leleges, Locrus led the Lelegian people, whom the 
infinite wisdom of Jupiter the son of Saturn col- 
lected formerly by drawing them from the bosom 
of the earth to make them subjects of Deucalion : 
by the expression collected I think he alludes to 
some ancient mixture of people, who disappeared 
altogether at a subsequent period. (Strabo^ lib. vii. 
c. 8.) As the terms Pelasgi and Leleges described 
an erratic and migratory mode of hfe, when these 
people became stationary and practised agriculture, 
they ceased to be appropriate, and were discon- 
tinued, or in other words, when they relinquished 
the habits of storks they lost the name. 

4. Pelargos (Greek), a stork. 

Pelasgi (storks), i.e. nomades, or a migratory 
pastoral people. 

Kespecting the Pelasgi, I have already said all 
that is necessary, and indeed all that I have to say. 
I will add a few words, however, as to the reading 
of Pelasgos for Pelargos, or the exchange of ♦R for 
S. An instance of this occurs so early as the year 



THE PELASGI. 157 

of Rome 290, respecting which Livy very gravely 
remarks, " Consules inde A. Postumius Albus, Sp. 
Furius Fusus. Furios Fusios scripsere quidam. 
Id admoneo, ne quis immutationem virorum ipso- 
rum esse, quse nominum est putet" (Lib. iii. c. 4.), 
as if to write one of these letters, for the other had 
been a matter of perfect indifference. The cele- 
brated decree of the Spartans, with respect to 
Timotheus the Milesian, which is given at length 
in the "Memoires des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres," 
is a still more palpable instance of misreading one 
letter for another, and many cases occur in Lanzi's 
Saggio di Etrusca of his reading E, though he is 
quite confident that it must have been intended to 
write S, as they are the proper names of places. 
Every effect must have an adequate cause, and 
wherever two letters have been very constantly 
misread we may be quite sure that the alphabet of 
that people must have contained two letters very 
inconveniently alike. Among the Etruscan inscrip- 
tions I find a character which I have no hesitation 
in denominating a Sanskrit S, which I have no 
doubt had a place in the ancient alphabets both of 
Greece and Italy, respecting both of which we 
know marvellously little, which is so like a Roman 
capital R that it can hardly be distinguished from 
it, and which I have no doubt was dismissed for 
this very reason when the Roman alphabet was 
finally settled, after having produced the various 
readings of Fusius and Furius in the passage quoted 



158 EARLIEST INHABITANTS OF GREECE, 

from Livy, and the still more important and per- 
manent one of Pelasgos and Pelargos, a stork. 

5. Garan (Celtic), a crane. 
Geranos (Greek), a crane. 

Cran (Saxon), one of the Scythic forms of 

the same word. 
Cranai^ an ancient name of the Athenians, 
attesting their Pelasgic origin, as it only 
substitutes one species of bird of the genus 
Ardea for another. 
Herodotus says, the Athenians were Pelasgi, and 
called Cranai, when that region now named Greece 
was possessed by the Pelasgi ; under Cecrops 
they took the name of Cecropidae. The title of 
Athenians was given them when Erectheus suc- 
ceeded to the throne, and their name of Ionian s 
was derived from Ion, who had been general of the 
Athenian forces. {Herodotus^ lib. viii. c. 44.) 

6. CicONiA (Latin), a stork. 

Cicones^ storks, i.e. nomades, or a migratory 
pastoral people. 
Their name occurs in the second book of the 
Iliad, among the auxiliaries of the Trojans. The 
ninth book of the Odyssey places them in Thrace, 
and describes them as defeating Ulysses on his re- 
turn from Troy ; and in Thrace we still find them 
at a period so late as the expedition of Xerxes. 
Herodotus, describing that expedition, says, the 
nations of Thrace, through which he marched, are 
these — thePa3ti, Ciconians, Bistones, Sapsei, Dersaei, 
Edonians, and the Satras. (Lib. vii. c. 110.) 



THE PELASGl. 159 

7. Grus (Latin) ; Gruo (Italian), a crane. 
Gruis (Latin), older form. 
Gruhis^ and GrucMs, obsolete form ; Grugo, 
(Italian), obsolete. (Barretti.) 

From Grus, Graios, Greek, and from the obso- 
lete Gruchis (Latin), the existence of which is next 
to proved by our finding Grugo, in the Italian; 
Graikos, Greek ; and Grsecus, Latin ; Cranes, that 
is, nomades, or a pastoral migratory people. It is 
remarkable that a form of the word Graios occurs 
in Thucydides, not as describing a Greek, but a 
Thracian people. Kelating the preparations of Si- 
talces, king of Thrace, against Macedon, he says he 
had levies also from among the Agrianians, LeaBans, 
and the other nations of Pseonia subject to himself. 
These were the farthest people in his dominions, 
reaching up to the Graseans and Leseans of Pseonia 
and the river Strymon, which deriving its source 
from Mount Scomius, waters the Graaeans and 
Legeans, which is the boundary of his empire from 
those Pseonians who are still free. ( Thucydides, lib. 
ii. c. 96.) It is also deserving of notice, that the 
city of Thrace, which Herodotus calls Crestona, 
Thucydides writes Grestona ; and when we observe 
how much the first syllable of the latter word is 
like the Latin Grus, a crane, we cannot but sus- 
pect that some connexion existed between the 
name of the city, and the metaphor deduced from 
the habits of migratory birds, of which we have 
seen so many instances in the early antiquities of 
Greece. The Bishop of Peterborough remarks 



160 EARLIEST INHABITANTS OF GREECE, 

that the very circumstance that the Pelasgi brought 
the term Graikoi mto Italy (which is proved by 
the fact of the Latins using the term Graaci), 
shews that Pelasgoi and Graikoi were only dif- 
ferent names of the same people. Farther, it ap- 
pears from the Greek chronicle on the Arundel 
marbles, that the term Graikoi was not confined to 
the neighbourhood of Dodona, but that it was 
generally a name of the Greeks before they were 
called Ellenes. The author of this ancient chronicle 
having said that the Greeks were called Ellenes 
from Hellen the son of Deucalion, adds, to Trporepov 
Tpoiixoi xaT^oviJLsvoi, But according to Herodotus 
(lib. ii. cap. 56.), the general name of Greece be- 
fore it received the name of Ellas was Pelasgia, 
which confirms the inference that Pelasgi and 
Graikoi were only difi'erent names of the same 
people. (Marsh, Horce Pelasgicce, p. 56.) There 
cannot, I think, be a shadow of doubt that the 
names were primarily metaphorical, and that the 
Pelasgoi difiered from the Graikoi only as the 
Greek word Pelargos (a stork) difi'ers from the 
Latin word Grus (a crane). 

8. Chasidah (Hebrew), a stork, or heron. 

Chasdim ; quere, storks, i. e. Scythians, a 
northern pastoral people. 

The article Chasdim in Gibbs' Gesenius' Hebrew 
Lexicon, says, in their irruptions into Palestine 
they came from the North by Hemath and Riblah, 
the usual route from Babylon. In opposition to 
the hypothesis of Michaelis and^chlozer, that the 



THE PELASGI. 161 

Chaldeans were a northern people, of perhaps Sla- 
vonic origin, and different from the Shemitish 
Babylonians. (See Adelung's Mithridat, Th. i. 
p. 314.) 

9. Ardea, the capital of the kingdom of Turnus. 
Ardea (Latin), a heron. 

This was probably a Pelasgic city, and Pliny 
expressly ascribes to it a Greek origin. " Ardea a 
Danse, Persei matre condita." The learned Yirgil 
derives its name from the Heron : — 

" Locus Ardea quondam 
Dictus avis, et nunc magnum manet Ardea nomen." 

j^neid, lib. vii. 411. 

And we learn from Ovid that when the city was 
taken and burnt by the Trojans, it was metamor- 
phosed into the bird from which it derived its 
name. 

" Cadit Ardea Turno 
Sospite dicta potens. — Quam postquam barbarus ignis 
Abstulit et tepida latuerunt tecta favilla 
Congerie e media tum primum cognita Prsepes 
Subvolat : et cineres plausis everberat alis. 
Et sonus, et macies, et pallor, et omnia, captam 
Quse deceant urbem, nomen quoque mansit in ilia 
Urbis : et ipsa suis deplangitur Ardea pennis." 

Metamor. lib. xiv. 573. 

85. So much for the Pelasgi, whom from the 
evidence of language we trace as occupying and 
giving a name to all Greece, existing in Thrace 
under their Latin name of Ciconians, as late as the 
expedition of Xerxes ; in Asia Minor under their 

M 



162 

Arabic name of Leleges, during the siege of Troy; 
and finally, as worshippers of Scanda the Hindu 
Mars, emigrating to and naming Asiatic Scandi- 
navia, Scythia or Tartary, to the north of the 
Himalaya mountains. But if, as we have seen 
from some of the Grecian authorities themselves, 
Prometheus was a Scythian, Deucalion a Scythian, 
and if the name of Xuthus, the son of Hellen, 
analysed into its elementary letters forms Skuthus, 
a Scythian, all the traditional accounts of the 
Greeks as to their own origin resolve themselves 
into a mythological dream, and disappear like the 
baseless fabric of a vision without leaving a rack 
behind. We have indeed gained some additional 
information as to the Pelasgi, but have lost every 
trace of the origin and formation of the Greek 
language, and where are we to look for it ? I 
answer, that if Greece was peopled from Scythia, 
Scythia itself was peopled from the overflowing 
population of Southern Asia, and that among the 
great nations existing at that early age of the 
world, that which gave a name to Scandinavia is 
deserving of our first notice, and that country was 
Hindustan, and its language the Sanskrit; and I 
shall proceed to point out that Sanskrit has much 
in common with, and exercised no inconsiderable 
influence on, the formation and character of Greek, 
and that illustrations of the latter may be deduced 
from the languages of Asia, after all other re- 
sources have failed. 

86. A few years since, the University of Oxford 



THE PELASGI. 163 

intimated its intention of publishing a new edition 
of Constantine's Greek Lexicon, which from some 
cause or other it was subsequently induced to aban- 
don, which is to be regretted, as the book is both 
scarce and dear. In many respects it is still the 
best in existence for general purposes; but how 
much better it might be rendered by such an 
University as that of Oxford ! I will venture to 
give one or two instances as regards etymology 
and inflection. In Sanskrit, we find two distinct 
roots*, with nearly the same meaning: — 

Lahh^ obtain, attain, get. {Wilhins' Sanskrit 
Grammar^ p. 3^.) 
Derivative, Labe, Cape (Greek). Imp. of Lam- 
bano, Capio. 
Lambhi^ cause to obtain. (^Wilhins' Sanslcrit 
Grammar^ p. 342.) 
Derivative. — Lambano (Greek), Capio. 
These two Sanskrit roots may lead us to suspect 
that what are called the irregularities of the Greek 
verbs are really not so, and that the apparently 
anomalous tenses are formed from perfectly distinct 
themes, one of which is lost ; and with reference 
to them J quite regular. Again, as in Sanskrit we 

* I am of course aware that a Sanskrit grammarian would 
not regard Lambhi as a Dhato or root, but as a derivative from 
Labh and its causative form, corresponding very nearly with 
the Hebrew verb in Hiphil. It is remarkable, however, that in 
passing from Sanskrit into Greek, the root and the derivative 
have changed places, as we find Lambhi in the Greek present 
tense Lambano, and the Sanskrit root Labh in the Greek deri- 
vative Labe. 

M 2 



164 



EAKLIEST INHABITANTS OE GREECE, 



find the root without the Greek termination, we. 
are naturally tempted to inquire what is that ter- 
mination, and to conjecture that it is Oriental as 
well as the root itself, and finally to resolve Lam- 
bano into — 

LamhJii^ Sanskrit root, 1 By contraction Aa^- 

Ano^ Syriac pronoun, I, J ^avco, Capio. 

Aa€'o//,r/>, Ion., pro sXa^o/^Tjv, a. 2. m., into 

Lahh^ Sanskrit root. 

Men^ Persic pronoun, I. 

Aa^o/^sv, ceperimus, 1 pi. a. 2. opt. act., into . 

Lahhj Sanskrit root. 

Men (Chinese), equivaleiit to we. 

The plural of nouns, says Du Halde in his Ab- 
stract of Chinese Grammar, is formed by the addi- 
tion of Men, or Teng, after the words. The former 
suggests close analogies with the Greek, in the 
genitive and dative formations of the personal pro- 
nouns Ego and Su in the plural number, and still 
more so in the conjugation of verbs, as Men forms 
the termination of the first person plural in every 
tense of the indicative, optative, and subjunctive 
moods of the active voice, and in many of those 
of the passive. In all these instances the Men 
(j^sv) is clearly equivalent to we, and points to the 
Chinese, and when it forms the termination of the 
first person singular, no less clearly to the Persic 
Men — I (jW">5v) in the former case being invariably 
written with Epsilon, and in the latter with 
Eta. 



THE PELASGI. 165 

Greek Etymology. 

87. A s^ng and confident conviction that 
Greek, perhaps the most beautiful language the 
world has ever been acquainted with, and cer- 
tainly second to none, is susceptible of much valu- 
able elucidation from the Sanskrit, has tempted 
me to devote a larger space to this division of my 
subject than will perhaps be agreeable to my 
readers: I feel sure, however, that the period is 
rapidly advancing, when those who may honour 
my book with a perusal will be of opinion that I 
have done too little rather than too much. 



Sanskrit Words. Analogies in Greek. 

Adhas, the infernal regions ...Hades. 

Apa, from Apo. 

Am a, with Ama. . 

Alpa, little Alpha, single, short, or little A. 

Ara, the planet Mars Ares, Mars. 

Ira, the Earth (with I, short)... Era, the Earth (with Epsilon). 

Udra, water Udor. 

Uda, water Udos. 

Upa, inferiority Upo. 

, excess, over, above Uper. 

Ki, Aditi, the mother of the Gods, with Eta prefixed, Era and 

Ere, Juno, 
with Epsilon, Era, the Earth. 
the Egyptian art. Fern. 

T prefixed, and coalescing, 

Terra, Latin. 

Okas, a house Oikos. 

Kalama, a pen, or reed Kalamos. 

Kastira, tin Kassiteros and Kattiteros. 

Kara, agent, or maker Cheir, the hand. 

Kritin, wise, or learned ...Q?/ere Cretans, the supposed subjects 

of Minos, or Menu. 
Kinakuna, theedgeof asword...Akinakes, a dagger, from a, 

privative, and the Sanskrit, 

i. e. no 



M 3 



16Q EARLIEST INHABITANTS OF GREECE, 

Sanskrit Words. Analogies in Greek. 

Kriya, the sign Aries Krios, a Ram. 

Go, or Gau, the earth, a "I Ge, the Earth. 

mother J Gemeter, for Demeter, Ceres. 

Grinij the Sun Grynseus, Apollo. 

Gna, to know Gno, for Egno, cognovit. 

Tanaya, a son, preceded by"! .p. . Terras Filius 

Ta, the Earth | ^^^^"^^ '' ^' "^^^^^ -^'^'^®- 

Tanus, the body, preceded by \ Titanos, gen. of Titan, i. e. 

Ta, the Earth J earth, body. 

Tihan, a bow Dihan, or Dian, the Goddess of 

Hunting, or the bow personi- 
fied. 

Trikona, a triangle Trigones. 

Danda, a stick, a name of 1 ^ ^ -, ,, , , 

Yama, or Pluto J ^^^ Caduceus of Mercury, 

Daha, to burn Daio. 

Disha, night Quere Dis, a name of Pluto. 

" Gloomy D'l^:' — Milton. 

Dru, a tree Drus. 

Nakta, night Nukta, ace. of Nux. 

Nasika, the nymph Aswini ...Nausikaa, Homer's Princess of 

the Pheacians. 

Noma, portion Nomos, region. 

Nau, a boat Naus. 

Patrin, a bird Peteinos. 

Para, more, exceeding Para. 

Para, injuring Para, badly. 

Pari, all round Peri. 

Pasu, a goat, a subordinate \ Pan, the God of Shepherds, re- 

deity J presented with goat's feet. 

Pa, to drink Pio. 

Para, the opposite bank of a 1 td . i, xi • j 

. ' ^^ J- Para, on the other side, 

river J ' 

Pratana, old, ancient Q were Pry tanes, officers, perhaps el- 
ders. 

Prasada, poetry Prosody, the laws of poetry. 

Prasiti, ligaments, fetters Prosody, or the laws, restraints, 

and conditions of metrical 
composition. 

Prina, old, ancient Prin, before. 

Phana, to shine Phaino. 

Phala, fruit Phulla, a leaf. 

Marana, death Maraino. 

Mallah, a wrestler Quere Milo, the Crotonian. 

Mila, ink Melas, black. 

Su, well, right Eu. 



THE PELASGI. 167 

Sanskrit Words. Analogies in Greek. 

Sri-blirati, a horse, reco-1 » ;i- ^ ^.t, /^ i ^t, 
-, ' ,, 1 '. r\ According to the Cxreek mytho- 
vered at the churmnor oi ^ -, .P -p. rxr ^ 

the ocean .! J ^^S^' ^^^ ^ift of Neptune. 

Shtha, to stand Istemi. 

San, with Sun. 

Sangar, a confluence of rivers. ..A river of Phrjgia. — Homer. 

Sam, with, together Sun. 

Samayoga, an assemblage Sunagoge, Synagogue, 

Sityan, corn, grain, rice Sition, food. 

Skalana, stumbling Skalenos, unequal. 

Stoman, the head Stoma, the mouth. 

Hyas, yesterday Chthes. 

Satadwara, hundred-gated Hecatompylos. 

Satira, an enemy Satyrs, mischievous inferior 

gods. 

Satavahana, Salivaliana See the legend of Cupid. 

{From Wilkins's Sanskrit Radicals.) 

Urnu, veil, cover. 

Note. A Sanskrit long vowel is a short one written twice, 
precisely like the oldest Greek and Etruscan inscriptions. 
If we insert A after R, and add a final S, we shall have 
Ouranos (Greek), the firmament, or that which covers the 
earth. The Latin Coelus, heaven, is the Greek word 
Koilos, hollow, i. e. space. 

Ri, go, move Reo, to flow. 

Gala, ooze, run out Gala, milk. 

Janma, birth Ginomai, to be born. 

Tracha ^ 

Traucha j-go Trecho, to run. 

Traga J 

Tripa, please, satisfy .» Terpo, to delight (by transposi- 
tion). 

Dama, be tame Damao, to subdue. 

Drama, go. The Drama, 
a Poem of Action, in con- 
tradistinction to the Epic, 
or that which is narrated 
by the Poet. 

Pindah, a lump, or heap -..Quere Mount Pindus. 

Mnaa, learn by heart Mnao, to recollect. 

Loka, speak, or talk "| j ^ 

Lagha, speat, or tell J ^ ' 

Labha, get, gain .....Labe, from Lambano. 

M 4 



- Quere Dromos, a course. 



168 EAKLIEST INHABITAXTS OF GEEECE, 

Sa^^skeit TToeds. Analogies in Greek. 

{From WilMns's Sanskrit Radicals.) 

Ank, honour, worship Ad ax, a king. 

Apa, under, beneath Upo. 

Atman, air, spirit „ Atmos, breath. 

Itara, other, either Eteros, Etera. 

Uru, broad Eunis. 

Khalu, certainly , Kalos, recte, pulchre. 

Ka, and Kai. 

Chiron, the Centaur: a form, 
or Avatar of Chronos, or 
Satui'n. 



Kirona, or Chirona, for 
Ions: time 



Karuna, or Charuna, pity ... 

Gahana, or Gehena, deej), 
profound 

Chi, or Ki, gather 



With a, privative — Qiiere, 
Acheron, the river of Hell, in 
the sense of merciless, in- 
exorable. 

Quere, Gehenna (Greek), hell, 
or rather, the grave. 

Cha, or Ka (Sanskrit), and. 

Ivai, (Greek), and. 

Java, a mother Gaia, terra, patria. 

Tras, fear Tarasso, to disturb. 

Datun, to give. Compare with the Greek. 

Dadami, I give...Dadasi, thou givest..Dadati, he gives (Sanskrit). 

Didomai Didosai Didotai (Greek Pass. Voice). 

Dru, run Dromos, a course. 

Nadah, a river, by transposition. 

Naiad, a river nymph, or a river personified. 

Pi, drink Pio. 

Pratah, early Protou, prius, ante. 

Pa (Persic), the foot ; Pons, Greek ; Pes, Latin. 
Padah (Sanskrit) do. ; Podos, do. ; Pedis, do. 
Pede, Italian; Pied, French. 

JVote. The above words are curious as throwing some light 
on the formation of the Greek and Latin Genitives, which 
appear to be Sanskrit, while the Nominative is Persic. 

Pa, cherish, nourish Pao, to feed. 

Papuh, a nourisher Pappas, a father. 

Pragi, in the morning 1 p , . 

Prahin, ditto J 

Psa, eat Psao, to break in pieces. 

Parnasa, leafy Qwere Parnassus (Mount). 

Panphul, very productive Pamphylia. 

Bru, speak Brucho, to groan. 

Manth, stir, agitate Mantis, a prophet. 

Mainomai, to become mad. 
Yuni, a young woman Gune, a woman. 



THE PELASGI. 169 

Sanskrit Words. Analogies in Greek. 

Stu, run, with Ego Stoicheo, incedo. 

Hari, or Heri, God (generic), with Kala, or Cala, time, and a 

Greek termination, Hercules, a name of the Sun, i. e. God of 

Time. 
Dam, a wife, with the Persic Ra, the mark of the oblique case, 

Damar and Damaris. 

Tripad, having three feet Tripod. 

Am, go Eimi. 

Tarpani, please, satisfy, gra- \ Terpo, delecto. 

tifj J Terpnon, delectatio. 

Va, go Ba, imp. of Baino. 

p ^ r Petao, to expand. 

' ' ° ' ^* \ Peteinos, a bird. 

Phullan, a flower, or blossom... Phullon, a leaf. 



170 ON THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS 



CHAPTER YIII. 

ON THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS OF ITALY AND SICILY. 

88. The history of tlie inliabitaiits of ancient Italy 
appears to divide itself into several stages, many of 
which we may confidently assert to be purely my- 
thological, and to have had no sort of foundation 
in fact, being the inventions of poets, agreeably to 
what they conceived might have been, and in no 
sense the relations of historians of what had actu- 
ally happened, resting on authentic documents. 

Almost every thing connected with the most 
ancient names of Italy is mythology in the strictest 
sense of the term, the actors and events being 
equally unreal ; the former, gods^ that is imaginary 
or allegorical beings, and the latter having nothing 
in common with humanity. And what is equally 
remarkable, as we have seen in the preceding 
chapter, in the instance of the Pelasgi, one key will 
open all the locks, one clue will guide us through 
all the labyrinths, and we shall perceive in a man- 
ner too clearly to admit of doubt, that " mutato 
nomine fabula narratur," the difficulty being merely 
verbal. A passage in the Edda of Snorro Sturlson 
informs us that Enea was a generic name of Europe, 
and it may very well have been so, as Europa was 
only one of the names of the Syrian Astarte, or 
the Moon, of Greek etymology (Euruopa, wide-see- 



OF ITALY AND SICILY. 171 

ing) ; and Enea appears to have been Egyptian. 
Polybius mentions a goddess ^ne, who was wor- 
shipped at Ecbatana, the capital of Media, which 
may have been the feminine of the Coptic Eneh, 
Time, Eternity, or Saturn. The clue to the leading 
names of ancient Italy is the arrival of Saturn in 
that country after his expulsion from Olympus by 
Jupiter. 

" Primus ab sethereo venit Saturnus Oljmpo 
Arma Jovis fugiens, et regnis exul ademptis. 
Is genus indocile ac dispersum montibus altis 
Composuit, legesque dedit, Latiumque vocari 
Maluit, his quoniam latuisset tutus in oris. 
Aurea qu£e perhibent illo sub rege fuerunt 
SaBCula ; sic placida populos in pace regebat. 

- Deterior donee paulatim ac decolor setas, 
Et belli rabies, et amor successit habendi : 
Tum manus Ausonias et gentes venere Sicanae; 
Saepius et nomen posuit Saturnia tellus." 

jEneid, lib. viii. 319. 

" Then Saturn came, who fled the pow'r of Jove^, 
Robb'd of his realms, and banish'd from above, • 
The men dispers'd on hills to towns he brought, 
And laws ordain'd and civil customs taught. 
And Latium call'd the land, where safe he lay 
From his unduteous son, and his usurping sway. 
With his mild empire peace and plenty came. 
And hence the golden times deriv'd their name. 
A more degen'rate and discolour'd age 
Succeeded this, with avarice and rage : 
Th' Ausonians then and bold Sicanians came, 
And Saturn's empire often chang'd the name." — Drtden. 

One more short passage from Yirgil will put us 
in possession of almost all the ancient names of 
Italy: — 



172 ON THE EAELIEST INHABITANTS 

"Est, locus, Hesperiam Graii cognomine dicunt ; 
Terra antiqua, potens armis atque ubere glebae : 
OEnotri coluere viri ; nunc fama, minores 
Italiam dixisse, ducis de nomine, gentem." 

^neid, lib. i. 530. 

" A land there is, Hesperia nam'd of old, 
The soil is fruitful, and the men are bold. 
Th' CEnotrians held it once — by common fame 
Now call'd Italia, from the leader's name." — Dryden. 

1. (Enotrus, (Enotri, and the CEnotrians. — The 

etymology of these words points unequivo- 
cally to Egypt and not to Greece, and con- 
sequently to Egyptian colonization, as they 
are to be found in the scanty remains of 
the Coptic that have reached us — Eneh, 
Time (Saturn), Ter, all, with a Greek and 
Latin termination, (Enotrus. With the 
Sanskrit termination of nouns ethnical, Jan, 
a man or person — CEnotrians, which may 
mean either the people who worshipped Sa- 
turn under the name of Eneh Ter (all 
time), or the Aborigines, or Autochthones, 
who had possessed the country from all 
time, their occupation of it being anterior 
to all history or tradition. Sir Isaac New- 
ton, in his chronology, very justly deno- 
minates OEnotrius the Janus of the Latins, 
as the latter is also one of the names of 
Saturn. 

2. Italia, from Italus. Aristotle, in his Politics, 

says that Italus changed the name of (Enotria 
into Italy ; and in the same passage men- 



OF ITALY AND SICILY. 173 

tions the Cliaonians as an (Enotrian tribe, 
which are so many confirmations of the 
etymologies which precede and follow — 

Aith (Hebrew), Time. 

Hit (Arabic), Time. 

Ail (Hebrew), God. 

Us^ Latin termination. 
Italus, Saturn, Chronos, or the God Time, 
or the God of Time and Italians, those who 
worshipped Saturn under that name, or 
were conceived to have possessed the coun- 
try from time immemorial. 

3. Chaonia and the Chaonians, from Chiun (He- 

brew), Kiwwan (Arabic), Saturn. North- 
wards, from the country first called Italy, 
says Aristotle, the Opici and Ausonians ex- 
tend themselves, on one hand, towards th e 
Tuscan sea ; but, on the other, the Cha- 
onians, an (Enotrian trihe^ have stretched 
towards the Ionian sea and lapygia. ( Gil- 
lies' Aristotle's Politics^ p. 270.) 

4. Latium, from a name of Saturn. Yirgil 



says 



"Latiumque vocari 
Maluit his quoniam latuisset tutus in oris." 

But with all submission to that divine poet, a 
much more probable etymology of Latium is 
from the Slavonic word Lito, the year, and, 
by a slight metonymy, time in general, 
Saturn, from which also we have the father 



174 ON THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS 

of Lavinia, Latinus, wMcli I believe to have 
been another name of the God, from — 

Lito (Slavonic), Annus (Tempus). 

Ina (Sanskrit), King. 

Us^ Eoman termination. 
And the Latins were the people who had 
possessed the country from time immemorial, 
or adored Saturn under his Slavonic name 
of Lito, or with the addition of the epithet 
Ina (King), Latinus. 
5. JEneas and the Trojans. 

This is most assuredly a modification of the 
fable of the arrival of Saturn in Italy ; and 
^neas himself is merely a humanized Sa- 
turn, or, in the language of the Hindus, an 
Avatar, or incarnation of the god ; the ety- 
mology of his name being either Eneh 
(Coptic), time, with a Latin termination; 
or Anihas (Sanskrit), time, with hardly any 
change at all. But should any one be dis- 
posed to receive as true the story of MnesiS, 
on the authority of Virgil, I would oppose 
to it the same author's account of Dardanus, 
as given by Helenus, in the third book of 
the Jllneid. 

" Jlinc Dardanus ortus 
lasiusque pater, genus a quo principe nostrum." 

Here we see the Trojans are said to be de- 
scended from the Italians, instead of the 
Italians from the Trojans. Do not these rela- 
tions mutually destroy each other, and ought 
not both to be transferred from the province 



OF ITALY AND SICILY. 175 

of history, to which they bear no sem- 
blance, to that of mythology, of which they 
are entirely composed ? 
89. The next fable is the arrival in Italy of the 
Lydians, or Tyrrhenians, under the command of 
Tyrrhenns, the son of Atys. Lydus, Mysus, and 
Tyrrhenus, are the palpable creations of fiction, 
formed on that genealogical model of which ancient 
history is full, and of whom we never should have 
heard a syllable, if Herodotus had not thought 
himself obliged to give some account of the origin 
of the names of the Lydians, Mysians, and Tyrrhe- 
nians. In this and all similar instances, not only 
are the children older than their parents, but the 
parents continue to beget children centuries, nay, 
thousands of years after they are dead. Xo Euro- 
pean ever heard of Chin and Turk, the sons of 
Japhet, until it was found necessary to account for 
the origin of the Chinese and the Turks ; so that 
these newly- discovered patriarchs may be said to be 
at once the progenitors and the progeny of the re- 
spective nations. The latest descendant of Japhet 
I have met with is Eus, who, I am assured in 
Richardson's Persic and Arabic Dictionary, was his 
eighth son, too^ether with the interestino^ informa- 
tion that the laws of Rus vested all family succes- 
sion in the females, ordering a sword to be put into 
the hand of every boy as soon as he was of age to 
wear it, with the words, " Behold your inherit- 
ance." It can hardly be necessary to add, that this 
new patriarch was the progenitor of the Russians. 



176 ON THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS 

To return to the Lydians, however. According to 
Herodotus, Lydus, Mysus, and Car, were the sons 
of Atys, and we must suppose the founders of the 
Lydians, Mysians, and Carians respectively ; but he 
had also another son, whose name was Tyrrhenus ; 
and after the occurrence of a dreadful famine in 
Lydia, a numerous body of emigrants placed them- 
selves under his guidance, who, leaving their coun- 
try, went to Smyrna, where building themselves 
vessels for the purpose of transporting their per- 
sons and effects, they removed in search of another 
residence, and, after visiting different nations, ar- 
rived at length in Umbria. Here they constructed 
cities, says Herodotus, and have continued to the 
present period, changing their ancient appellation 
of Lydians for that of Tyrrhenians, after the name 
of the son of their former sovereign. (Lib. i. c. 94.) 
90. Strabo repeats the account of Herodotus 
with some variations. The Romans, says he, gave 
the Tyrrhenians the name both of Etruscans and 
Tuscans. The Greeks called them Tyrrhenians, 
after Tyrrhenus, the son of Atys, who sent a 
colony into that country from Lydia. Atys, one of 
the descendants of Hercules and Omphale, and the 
father of two children, called Lydus and Tyrrhenus, 
during a period of sterility and famine determined 
by lot that Lydus should continue in his country, 
and that Tyrrhenus, followed by the greater part of 
his people, should quit it, and accordingly he came 
and established himself in that country of Italy, 
which received its name from him. He founded 
twelve cities, to which he gave for governor that 



OF ITALY AND SICILY. 177 

Tarclion, from whom the city of Tarcynia (Tarqui- 
nia ?) received its denomination, and who, on 
account of the intelligence which he displayed from 
his earliest years, passed in mythology for having 
been born with white hair. Acknowledging in 
the first instance the authority of an individual, 
these twelve cities formed a powerful state, but we 
are under the necessity of supposing that their 
association was subsequently dissolved, and that 
each city being once separated from the league, 
the TyrrheniaDS experienced great difficulty in 
defending themselves against their neighbours, 
othermse we should never have seen them, aban- 
doning the cultivation of a fertile country, addict 
themselves to piracy, some on the upper and some 
on the lower sea. (Strabo, lib. v. c. 4.) Pau- 
sanias rather hints at than repeats the fable, but 
he makes Tyrrhenus the son of Hercules and a 
Lydian woman, and gives him a son of the name of 
Hegelaus, while Apollodorus describes an Agelaus 
as the son of Hercules and Omphale. 

91. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who on the 
whole must be regarded as the highest and most 
learned authority for the antiquities of Italy, 
repeats, and at the same time refutes, many of the 
preceding particulars in the following passage. 
Some have said that Tyrrhenus was the son of 
Hercules by Omphale the Lydian, and that coming 
into Italy he dispossessed the Pelasgi of their cities, 
though not of all, but of those only which lay on 
the north side of the Tyber. Others say that 

N 



178 ON THE EAELIEST INHABITANTS 

Tyrrhenus was the son of Telephus, and that after 
the taking of Troy he came into Italy. But 
Xanthus the Lidyan, who was as much acquainted 
with ancient history as any man, and whose testi- 
mony may be rehed on in that of his own country, 
does not, in any part of his history, either name Tyr- 
rhenus as a prince of the Lydians, or know any thing 
of the arrival of a colony of Maeonians in Italy, 
neither does he make the least mention of Tyr- 
rhenia as a Lydian colony, though he takes notice 
of several things of less importance, but says that 
Lydus and Torebus were the sons of Atys ; that 
they,- having divided the kingdom they had inhe- 
rited from their father, both remained in Asia, 
from whom, he says, the nations over whom they 
reigned received their name. Hellanicus the Les- 
bian says, that the Tyrrhenians^ who were before 
called Pelasgi, received the name they are now 
kno\vn by after they had settled in Italy. These 
are his words in his Phoronis. Phrastor was the 
son of Pelasgus their king by Menippe the daughter 
of Peneus, his son was Amyntor, Amyntors Teuta- 
mides, whose son was Nanas, in whose reign the 
Pelasgi were driven out of their country by the 
Greeks, and leaving their ships in the river Spines, 
in the Ionian gulph, took Croton, an inland town, 
from whence advancing they peopled the country 
now called Tyrrhenia. But the account Myrsilus 
gives is the reverse of that given by Hellanicus. 
The Tyrrhenians, says he, after they had left their 
own country, were, from their wandering, called 



OF ITALY AND SICILY. 179 

Pelargoi, that is, Storks, as resembling in that 
respect the birds called by that name, that come 
over in flocks both into Greece and the country of 
the Barbarians ; and he adds, that these people built 
the wall round the citadel of Athens, which is 
called the Pelargian wall. {Spelman's Dionysius, 
book i. c. 28.) 

92. I regard this as one of the most important 
passages in the whole history of Dionysius of 
Halicarnassus, full as that history is of interesting 
matter, no less on account of what it denies than of 
what it affirms, and am of opinion that it contains 
some portion of substantial fact, and throws some 
glimmering of light on the darkness with which it 
is surrounded, and that if it does not contain the 
exact truth, it will at least put us in the way of 
finding it. From it we may deduce three most 
material consequences. 

1. That every thing connected with the colo- 
nization of Tuscany by the Lydians of Asia 
Minor is pure mythology without the small- 
est historical foundation, and that as some 
of the fables inake Tyrrhenus, the son of 
of Telephus king of Mysia, the site of the 
fabulous Troy, we may infer that this story 
of the Lydians is merely a variation of 
Eneas and the Trojan Colony, as the latter 
is of the arrival of Saturn (Eneh, Coptic, 
Time, Anihas, Sanskrit Time) in Italy, 
after his expulsion from heaven by Jupiter. 
Every circumstance in the Greek poets and 

N 2 



180 ON THE EAELIEST INHABITANTS 

geographers connected with Troy, Lydia, 
Phrygia, and Mysia, is involved in inex- 
tricable and hopeless confusion. 

2. That the arrival of the Tyrrhenians in Italy 

is perfectly identical with the coming of the 
Pelasgi, and that though Dionysius of Hali- 
carnassus denies this in so many words, 
from an idea that the languages of the two 
people were different, yet that he is obliged 
to admit it in substance. 

3. That there is no account of the mode in which 

Tuscany was peopled more historical or 
more authentic than that of the origin of 
the population of Italy generally, and that, 
as in the similar instance of Greece, we 
trace that population first to Thrace, next to 
Scythia, and finally obtain glimpses of it in 
the remotest East. 
Every thing bearing the semblance of his- 
tory connected with the early antiquities of 
Italy may be conveniently arranged under 
the four words or heads — 

1. Tyrrhenia. 

2. Lydia. 

3. Cimmeria. 

4. Tuscany. 

1. Tyrrhenia. 

93. I am not aware that we can trace this name 
in Asia, except in connexion with the fabulous 
Tyrrhenus, the son of Atys. It appears to have 



OF ITALY AND SICILY. 181 

been unknown to Homer, but mention of it as a 
country of Thrace occurs once in Herodotus inci- 
dentally. What language the Pelasgians used I 
cannot positively affirm, says he, but some probable 
conclusion may perhaps be formed by attending 
to the dialect of the remnant of the Pelasgians 
who now inhabited Crestona (in Thrace), beyond the 
Tyrrhenians^ but who formerly dwelt in the country 
now called Thessaliatis, and were neighbours to 
those whom we at present name Dorians. Con- 
sidering these with the above who founded the 
cities of Placia and Scylace on the Hellespont, but 
once lived near the Athenians, together with the 
people of other Pelasgian towns who have since 
changed their names, we are on the whole justified 
in our opinion that they formerly spoke a barbarous 
language (that is, not Greek). The Athenians, 
therefore, who were also of Pelasgian origin, must 
necessarily, when they came among the Hellenians, 
have learned their language (that is, have acquired 
Greek). It is observable that the inhabitants of 
Crestona and Placia speak in the same tongue, but 
are neither of them understood by the people about 
them (the neighbouring Greeks). These circum- 
stances, concludes Herodotus, induce me to believe 
that their language has experienced no change. 
(Lib. i. c. 57.) Whatever may have been the lan- 
guage of the Pelasgi, it continued to be spoken in 
Lemnos and Imbros up to the time of Darius Hys- 
taspes, for Herodotus, describing the operations of 
his general Otanes, says, with the assistance of a 

N 3 



182 ON THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS 

fleet from Lesbos, he made himself master of Lem- 
nos and Imbros, both of which were then inhabited 
by Pelasgi. (Lib. v. c. 26.) Thucydides gives the 
following account of the operations of Brasidas the 
celebrated general of the Lacedemonians in Thrace. 
Being master of Amphipolis, says he, he gathered 
together the allies, and led them into the district 
called Acte. It is the tract which stretches out 
into the sea from the canal which was dug by 
Xerxes, and Athos, the highest mountain in Acte, 
is its utmost verge on the ^gean sea. The cities 
in it are Sane, a colony of Andrians seated close to 
the canal, and on that part which faces the sea 
towards Eubaea, Thyssus farther, and Cleone and 
Acrothous and Olophyxus and Dium, which are 
promiscuously inhabited by various sets of bar- 
barians who speak both languages. There is also 
a small number of Chalci deans amongst them, 
hut the hulk are Pelasgians, the issue of those Tyrrhe- 
nians loho formerly inhabited Lemnos and Athens^ 
and Bisaltians, and Crestonians^ and Edonians ; they 
reside in small fortresses. ( Thucydides, lib. iv. 
c. 109.) It is remarkable that Thucydides in ano- 
ther passage writes Grestona instead of Crestona 
{TprifTTOiviav Kai ^KraXrioLV^ lib. ii. c. 99.), which 
would induce one to conjecture that the word may 
have been formed by contraction from the Latin 
Grus, a Crane, and the Sanskrit Stan, a place, 
town, or city. The reader will recollect that 
Homer places the Cicones in Thrace, that Hero- 
dotus mentions the same people in three passages 



OF ITALY AND SICILY. 183 

of his work, and that Ciconia is the Latin, and 
Pelargos (Pelasgos) the Greek word for a Stork. 

94. Dionysius of Halicarnassus quotes, or rather 
misquotes, Herodotus, for it is remarkable that 
both he and his learned translator Spelman con- 
found Crestona, or Grestona, in Thrace, with Crotona 
in Magna Gr^ecia, the celebrated rival of Sybaris, 
and Tyrrhenia in Thrace with Etruria, or Tyr- 
rhenia, in Italy. " For neither do the Crotoniatge," 
says Herodotus, " nor the Placiani, who speak the 
same language, use the same with any of their 
neighbours, by which it appears that they preserve 
the same language they brought with them into 
those countries." Dionysius then proceeds to re- 
mark, however, it is surprising that notwithstand- 
ing the Crotoniataa (of Italy) spoke the same 
language with the Placiani, who lived near the 
Hellespont, since both were originally Pelasgi, the 
language of the former should be quite diiferent 
from that of the Tyrrhenians (of Italy), their 
nearest neighbours, because, if consanguinity is to 
be looked upon as the cause why two nations speak 
the same language, the contrary must occasion 
their speaking a different one, for there is no 
reason to think that both these causes can produce 
the same effect. {Spelman' s Dionysius^ book i. 
c. 29.) He notices the passage of Thucydides in 
the following manner. Thuc3^dides speaks of them 
as living in that part of Thrace called Acte, and of 
the cities there as inhabited by men who spoke two 
languages : he then makes mention of the Pelasgian 

N 4 



184 ON THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS 

nation in the following manner. There are some 
Chalcidians, but the greater part are Pelasgi, the 
same nation with the Tyrrhenians, who once in- 
habited Lemnos and Athens. ( Spelman^s Dionysius^ 
book i. c. 25.) Surely, after reading these passages, 
it is hardly possible to doubt that the Thracian 
Tyrrhenians w^ere Pelasgi, and, when we recollect 
that Illyria was the only country that divided 
Thrace from Italy, that the Tyrrhenians of the two 
latter countries were identical. Dionysius himself 
says, by the Greeks, the Latini^ Umbri, Ausones, 
and other people of Italy were called Tyrrhenians ; 
by the Romans they were called Tusci, Thyscoi, 
and Etrusci, and in their own language Rasense. 
He also says expressly, I do not think the Tyrrhe- 
nians were a colony of Lydians (of Asia Minor) ; so 
that that hypothesis may be regarded as having 
fallen to the ground ; and under the next division I 
shall give a probable account of the mode in which 
it originated. 

2. Lydia. 

95. Authentic history, universal tradition, and 
the evidence of language, concur in proving that 
Asia was the earliest seat of civilization, and that 
Europe was peopled from that continent. The 
next step in the inquiry is, if possible, to ascertain 
the names of some of the Asiatic people who emi- 
grated, the spot they originally occupied, the period 
at which they quitted it, and the successive steps 
by which they attained their new settlements in 



OF ITALY AND SICILY. 185 

Europe. The following instance affords much 
matter for speculation. In Herodotus's enumera- 
tion of the army of Xerxes we find the Ligyes an 
Asiatic people who inhabited the country between 
Caucasus and the river Phasis. In Tacitus's ac- 
count of Germany we find a great people, described 
under the name of Lygians, who are said to have 
been subdivided into the communities of the Arians, 
the Helvecones, the Manimians, the Elysians, and 
the Naharvalians. {Germ. c. 43.) An intelligent 
writer in the " Memoires des Inscriptions et Belles 
Lettres " asserts, apparently on the authority of 
Pomponius Mela, that the Ligyes occupied the vast 
extent of country situated between Germany and 
the Borysthenes, distinguished in modern geography 
by the general name of Poland Lygiorum nomen in 
plures civitates difi'usum. {Choix des Memoires^ 
tome ii. p. 54.) Strabo describes the Alps as in- 
habited by difi*erent people, the whole of which 
were of Celtic origin, except the Ligyes, or Ligures ; 
and it may be doubted if this exception is well 
founded, as we have seen that there is every reason 
to believe that this people were of Asiatic origin, 
and we trace them to the vicinity of Mount Cau- 
casus. Strabo himself describes the Ligyes as re- 
sembling the Celtse in their manner of living, and 
as occupying that portion of the Alps which joins 
the Apennines, and a part of the Apennines them- 
selves, a country which was the Liguria of the 
ancients, and the modern territory of Genoa. 
{Strabo^ lib. ii.) The whole line of coast, pursues 



186 ON THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS 

Strabo, from Monaco to Tyrrhenian is such that we 
meet with nothing deserving the name of a port, 
and merely some inconsiderable havens and anchor- 
ing grounds. Above it rise lofty and steep moun- 
tains, which leave no more than a very narrow 
passage between themselves and the sea. The whole 
of this coast, but more especially its mountainous 
part, is inhabited by the Ligyes, whose subsistence 
is composed chiefly of animal food, milk, and a 
species of drink which they prepare from barley. 
In this part of the country the mountains supply 
in abundance timber adapted to the purpose of 
building ships, and so prodigious is the height and 
size of the trees that we meet with many which are 
eight feet in diameter. Many of these trees produce 
a veined wood as well suited to manufacturing 
beautiful tables as those which are made of cedar. 
(Strabo, lib. iv.) ISFow when we observe that the 
Ligyes bordered on the Tyrrhenians, remark how 
much Ligyia is like Lydia, and Ligyes, or Lygians, 
like Lydians, and reflect how much the ancients 
before the invention of printing and the consequent 
multiplication of books must necessarily have writ- 
ten from oral report ; is it not more than probable 
that the similarity in sound between Lygians and 
Lydians is the sole foundation of the Lydian colony 
brought to Italy by Tyrrhenus, the son of Atys 
and brother of Lydus, who most assuredly are all 
the mere creations of fiction. 



OF ITALY AND SICILY. 187 



3. Cimmeria. 



96. The very existence of a country of the name 
of Cimmeria in Italy would appear to depend al- 
together on the meaning of a passage in the 11th 
Book of the Odyssey, from which some of the com- 
mentators have extracted an interpretation which 
clearly never entered the head of Homer, in their 
zeal to make him what no degree of zeal will ever 
accomplish, a consistent geographer and an au- 
thentic historian. 

Strabo says, very truly, that Homer was ac- 
quainted with the Cimmerian Bosphorus, as he not 
only names the Cimmerians, but places the locality 
of his Hell in their country (lib. i.); and yet in 
another passage he almost appears to admit that 
Homer assigned that hell to Campania. The 
ancient Greeks, says he, mixing fable with his- 
tory, applied to the lake Avernus what Homer 
relates in his Evocation of the Manes {Odyssey^ 
bookxi.); and we are assured that in this place 
there was formerly an oracle of the dead. Avernus 
is simply a deep basin, provided with a very narrow 
entrance, and consequently well-adapted, both from 
its nature and size, for a port, though it is not 
applied to that purpose on account of the shoals 
with which the Lucrine lake abounds, situated be- 
tween it and the sea ; but this same Avernus is 
surrounded with steep hills, which bound its cir- 
cumference, except at its mouth ; and these hills, 
which at the present day present so agreeable a 



188 ON THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS 

spectacle, were formerly covered with deep and im- 
penetrable forests, which projected over the waters 
a shadow available for the purposes of superstition. 
The inhabitants of the country supported the my- 
thological stories by adding that birds were unable 
to cross Lake Avernus, and fell into it, arrested in 
their flight by the noxious vapours which exhaled 
from its surface. ■ It was soon generally admitted 
that this gulf was a Plutonium, around which, say 
they, dwelt the Cimmerii, and into which navigators 
never entered without having previously offered 
propitiatory sacrifices to the infernal divinities, 
according to the rite prescribed by the priests to 
whom the possession of this place is secured; the 
spring of water which is found hard by on the sea- 
shore was reported to emanate from the river Styx, 
and every body refrained from using it ; and thus 
Ephorus, adapting his description of the locality to 
what we know respecting the Cimmerii from other 
quarters, relates that they dwelt in subterranean 
habitations denominated ArgillaB, which had a com- 
munication with each other by passages formed 
under ground, and also that the prophetic temple 
to which strangers were admitted was built at a 
great depth under the surface of the earth. (Strabo, 
lib. V. c. 10.) One of the chief inducements to the 
commentators on Homer to place a Cimmeria in 
Italy, and to suppose that the spot of Ulysses's 
descent, seems to have been the difficulty of his 
reaching the Cimmerian Bosphorus from the resi- 
dence of Circe with a northerly wind. But as there 



OF ITALY AND SICILY. 189 

can be little doubt that tbe name of the Chnmerii 
was contracted into Cimbri, that the latter term is 
identical with Cymri, the term by which the Welch 
still designate themselves, and that all the Gaulish 
tribes were Gaels, or Celts, Ancient Italy is placed 
in the same category with the more westerly parts 
of Europe, to which Herodotus assigns as their 
earliest inhabitants the Celtee and Cynetae. But 
although we cannot find a Cimmeria in Italy, the 
name of the Cimbri appears to have been per- 
petuated in Umbria, which seems to be essentially 
the same word without its initial aspirate. 

97. Having proved that the Tuscans were not 
the Lydians of Asia Minor, but the Ligyes of Hero- 
dotus, Tacitus, and Strabo, and that the Tyrrhe- 
nians of Italy were probably identical with the 
Tyrrhenians of Thrace, both being Pelasgi, and 
entered the former country through Illyria, we 
place the earliest inhabitants of Italy nearly on the 
same footing with those of Greece, tracing them 
back to the great parent stock of Celtae, Scythse, 
or Asiatic Scandinavians. Lempriere in his Dic- 
tionary, without assigning any specific authority, 
says that Tyrrhenia was a general name of Italy, 
and I think it very likely that that of Tuscany 
may have been co-extensive. The etymology of 
Cimmeria I believe to have been the Hebrew word 
Chum, black, and that of Tartary the Persic word 
Tar, dark, doubled. The primary idea in both 
appears to have been the six months' darkness that 
prevails within the polar circle. From Tartary, the 



190 ON THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS 

Greeks formed their Tartarus, or Hell, which, as 
we have seen, Homer places in the country of the 
Cimmerians. The same idea was familiar to the 
middle ages. Even Shakspeare, in his first part of 
King Henry the Sixth, puts the following address 
into the mouth of the Maid of Orleans : — 

" Now help, ye charming spells and periapts ; 
And ye choice spirits that admonish me 
And give me signs of future accidents ; [thunder] 

You speedy helpers that are substitutes 
Under the lordly monarch of the North, 
Appear, and aid me in this enterprize ! " — ■ 

while a note in Chalmers's Shakspeare informs us, 
that the north was always supposed to be the pecu- 
liar habitation of bad spirits, and that therefore 
Milton, in his Paradise Lost, assembles the rebel 
angels in the north. By connecting two sentences 
of Tacitus and Cassar, we gain a ray of light, which 
is feeble indeed, but not to be despised where all 
around is darkness. The former, speaking of the 
origin of the Germans, says, " Celebrant carmi- 
nibus antiquis (quod unum apud illos memorise et 
annalium genus est), Tuistonem (Tuisconem ?) 
Deum terr^ editum, et filium Mannum originem 
gentis conditoresque," ( Germ. c. 2. ) ; while the latter 
has the following very singular passage respecting 
the Gauls: — " Galli se omnes ab Dite Patre pro- 
gnatos prsedicant, idque ab Druidibus proditum 
dicunt." {De Bello Gallico^ lib. vi. c. 18.) Now, 
that the Germans, and the Gauls, Gaels, Celtse, or 
Scythae, stand in the relation to each other of a part 



OF ITALY AND SICILY. 191 

to the whole, is, I think, a matter susceptible of 
demonstration ; so that, if we allow any weight 
whatever to these early traditions, Tuisco and Pluto 
were identical. The names in both instances may 
contain a reference to the Tartarian, Cimmerian, 
or remote northern primitive seat of their common 
ancestor. Again, it is impossible to doubt that 
many nations of antiquity were denominated from 
the names of the gods they worshipped, and it has 
been shown that ^notria, Chaonia, Italia, and 
Latium were probably derived from so many names 
of Saturn in diiFerent languages; and the same 
system may have been carried very much farther. 
Herodotus mentions Targitaus as the ancestor of 
the Scythians, a word which is probably formed 
from the Persic Tariki, darkness, obscurity, and 
Targitaus, identical with the Pluto or Jupiter 
Stygius of the Greeks. Sir William Jones informs 
us that the country to the north of the Oxus was 
called by the ancient Persians Touran, in contra- 
distinction to Iran. The etymology of this word 
appears to be the Persic Taran, dark, agreeing in 
meaning with Cimmeria, Tartary, and Tartarus ; 
and Taranis, respecting whom the commentators 
know little or nothing, may be merely another 
name of Jupiter Stygius, or Pluto, as that of the 
Tauric Diana certainly was of Proserpine. 

" Et quibus immitis placatur sanguine diro 
Teutates, horrensque feris altaribus Hesus, 
Et Taranis Scythicae non mitior ara DianjE." 

LucAN, lib. i. 444. 



192 ON THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS 

" And you where Hesus' horrid altar stands, 
Where dire Teutates human blood demands, 
Where Taranis by wretches is obey'd, 
And vies in slaughter with the Scythian maid." — Rowe. 

98. If we trace the ancestors both of the Italians 
and Greeks to Scythia, and if Touran, or Taran, as 
well as Scandinavia, was an oriental name of Scy- 
thia, Tyrrhenia might very naturally mean the 
country of those who came from Touran, and 
Tyrrhenians those who worshipped Jupiter Stygius 
under the name of Taranis. If so, I should be dis- 
posed to go one step farther, and suppose that the 
Tuscans may have been those who worshipped the 
same deity under the name of Tuisco. Both Greece 
and Italy were certainly peopled principally from 
Scythia, though both may have received colonies 
from Egypt, the former through Thrace and Mace- 
donia, and the latter through Illyria, Germany, and 
France, so that we need experience no surprise that 
we do not discover the German Tuisco in Italy, 
when we find his followers there under the name of 
Tuscans, or of Tyrrhenians, from Taranis. We 
must not expect perfect consistency in mythology. 
The name of Scandinavia is unquestionably from 
the Indian Scanda, who was a god of war, and that 
of Woden, or Odin, from the Indian Budha, who 
have both given their names to Wednesday in 
Europe and Hindustan respectively ; but Odin, 
although a god of war, was also a god of the lower 
regions, as I suppose Targitaus, Taranis, and Tuisco 
to have been ; and Bartholinus says expressly. 



OF ITALY AND SICILY. 193 

" Odinus Manium fuit Dominus Mercuric compa- 
randus." 

99. In connexion with the Asiatic origin of the 
nations of Europe, Pinkerton remarks, that in 
Scythia " intra et extra Imaum were Chatse (Catti), 
Sasones (Saxones), Syebi (Suevi), Tectosaces (Tec- 
tosages), lotge (lutes), and a town Menapia, all 
coinciding with German names, and which could 
only spring from identic language. {Essay ^ page 
39., note.) It is also deserving of remark, that 
Tacitus mentions the Arians as one of the tribes of 
the Lygians, and that we are informed by Herodotus 
the Medes were anciently called Arii, and that 
Arians, mentioned in connexion with the Parthians, 
Chorasmians, and Sogdians, constituted part of the 
army of Xerxes. We also find the Boduni among 
the British tribes, and Budii and Budini in Hero- 
dotus. The Budii are mentioned among the ancient 
Medes in connexion with the Magi. The latter, 
we know, were worshippers of the sun ) and I am 
disposed to trace the former one step farther east, 
and believe that they may have received their 
name from the Indian Budha, the sun, synonymous 
with Odin or Woden. But if Scanda, the Hindu 
Mars, gave his name to Scandinavia, and Budha, 
under his European name of Woden, continued to 
be the great God of the northern nations for more 
than eight hundred years after the promulgation of 
Christianity, we can feel no difficulty in believing 
that the Suevi of Tacitus were denominated after 



194 ON THE EAELIEST INHABITANTS 

Siva, another of the great gods of the Hindu 
Pantheon. 

4. Sicily. 

100. Sicily will not detain us long, as very much 
that has been related of Italy will also apply to that 
island; traditions essentially the same being dis- 
guised by having been transmitted in different 
languages. As all the earliest names of Italy were 
so many names of Saturn in various tongues, so 
Sicily appears to have been derived from the Latin 
Seculum, an age or long period of time, and by a 
slight metonymy, time in general. The Latin word 
secula, a scythe, was its homonym, or phonetic 
type ; and accordingly we find Saturn armed with a 
scythe in all representations of him both ancient and 
modern. Pausanias, in his journey in Achaia, says, 
you next meet with a promontory which advances 
into the sea, which is the place, according to some, 
where Saturn threw away the scythe with which 
he had mutilated his father Coelus ; and from this 
circumstance the promontory received the name of 
Drepanum, the Greek word for scythe. There was 
a city of the name of Drepana, or Drepanum, in 
Sicily, the modern Trepani; and wherever that 
word occurs as the name of a place, we may rely 
on meeting with some tradition respecting Saturn 
and his scythe. {Pausanias^ lib. vii. c. 23. Fac- 
ciolati, in voce '• Drepanitanus.") 

101. Sicania, which according to some is the 
oldest name of Sicily, I believe to be another version, 



OF ITALY AND SICILY. 195 

slightly disguised, of the perpetually recurring 
story of the Pelasgoi, Pelargoi, or Storks, the word 
being slightly altered from the Latin Ciconia, a 
Stork. The reader will no douht recollect that we 
have met with Thracian Cicones in Homer, and 
found them mentioned by Herodotus in three pas- 
sages, and as existing in Thrace so late as the expe- 
dition of Xerxes. I think we meet with them under 
the name of Sigynae, in Scythia or at any rate far 
to the north of the Danube, in the work of the same 
indefatigable, accurate, and truth-loving historian. 
He describes this people as calling themselves a 
colony of the Medes, resembling the Medes in their 
dress, possessing the whole of the country to the 
north of the Ister, and extending almost to the 
Heneti, or Yeneti, on the Adriatic, so that he brings 
the Sigynse into immediate contact with, if not 
actually into, Italy. {Herodotus^ lib. v. c. 9.) 

102. The high reputation of Thucydides, how- 
ever, requires that some notice should be taken of 
his account of the Sicani. According to this dis- 
tinguished historian, the Cyclops and Lsestrygons 
were described as having been the most ancient 
inhabitants of some parts of Sicily ; but he treats 
such traditions as poetical fables, not worth in- 
vestigating. After them the Sicani were repre- 
sented as the next in succession, but they regarded 
themselves as the original possessors. Thucydides, 
however, brings them from the river Sicanus, in 
Iberia, from which they derived their name, and 
whence they were driven by the Ligyes ; and on 

o 2 



196 ON THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS 

arriving in Sicily they gave it tlie name of Sicania, 
after themselves, it having been previously called 
Trinacria, and continued to possess the western 
parts of the island at the period when the historian 
wrote. (Thucydides^ lib. vi. c. 2.) I am strongly 
disposed to believe that the translators and com- 
mentators of Thucydides have been misled in this 
passage by a similarity of name. There were two 
Iberias, one corresponding with modern Spain, and 
the other in Asia, situated between the Euxine and 
the Caspian seas. To this spot we trace the Ligyes 
of Herodotus, a people from whom I believe the 
fable or tradition arose of a Lydian colony from 
Asia Minor having peopled Tyrrhenia. But the 
Spanish Sicani are said to have been expelled by 
Ligyes {Aiyusg^ Greek; Ligyes, Latin): and I 
strongly suspect that from similarity of name this 
scene has been transferred from Asiatic to Euro- 
pean Iberia. The Sigynae are said by Herodotus 
to have been a Median people (still in the same 
neighbourhood) ; and I entertain hardly a doubt in 
my own mind that the Sigyn£e of Herodotus are 
the earliest historical form of the Sicilian Sicani, 
and that the whole is merely an episode in the his- 
tory of the Pelasgi, and their Scythian or Scandi- 
navian extraction. This conjecture receives some 
degree of support from the company in which the 
Sicani are found. According to Thucydides, in 
the same passage, from the junction with some 
Trojans, who had escaped from the ruin of their 
city, the Sicani were subsequently induced to take 



OF ITALY AND SICILY. 197 

the name of Elymi. To understand this, we are 
under the necessity of supposing that these Trojans 
were Elymi ; and we know of no historical Elymi 
except the inhabitants of the Persian province of 
ElymaiSj which, as well as the words Iberia, Ligyes, 
and Sigynse, lead us to the East and not to the West, 
and point much more clearly to an Asiatic than to 
an European origin of the Sicani. 

103. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who has written 
at greater length and with more minute circum- 
stantiality on the antiquities of Italy than any other 
author, does not leave an impression on the minds 
of his readers in point of force and clearness, in 
any degree corresponding with the immense pains 
he has taken, the principal reason of which is, that 
he has at once done too much and too little : too 
much, by collecting indiscriminately all the mytho- 
logical and traditional accounts of the Greeks, 
which are so conflicting and inconsistent that they 
neutralize each other; and too little, by not fur- 
nishing us with some clue to assist us in threading 
our way through this more than Dsedalean laby- 
rinth. The first mention that occurs of the Siceli 
in his work is in connexion with the building 
of Rome. The most ancient possessors of the 
place, says he, where the city now stands, are said 
to have been the barbarous Siceli, natives of the 
country (or, in other words, what the Greeks dis- 
tinguished by the epithet Autochthones). As to 
the condition of the place before their time, none 
can certainly say whether it was inhabited or de- 

o 3 



198 ON THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS 

sert. Afterwards tlie Aborigines made themselves 
masters of it, having dispossessed the inhabitants, 
that is, the Siceli, after a long war. These people 
(the Aborigines) lived before that on the mountains, 
in villages without walls, and dispersed. But after 
the Pelasgi, and some other Greeks mingling with 
them, assisted them in the war against their 
neighbours, they drove the Siceli out of this place 
(the site of Rome), walled in many towns, and con- 
trived to make themselves masters of all the country 
that lies between the Liris and the Tiber. This 
nation remained in the same place, being never 
from that time driven out by any other ; the same 
people, however, being called by different names at 
different periods. Till the time of the Trojan war 
they preserved their ancient name of Aborigines ; 
under Latinus their king, who reigned during 
that war, they began to be called Latins ; and 
Romulus having built a city after his own name 
sixteen generations after the taking of Troy, they 
changed their name to Romans. {Dionysius^ hb. i. 
c. 9.) The great difficulty that pervades this ac- 
count is, that we appear to have a distinction with- 
out any conceivable difference. The Siceli were 
natives of Latium, that is, Autochthones, and had 
possessed the country from time immemorial ; and 
to describe them as driven out by another people, 
who are denominated Aborigines, seems to be equi- 
valent to asserting that the new comers were older 
than the oldest, and earlier than the first. 

104. Dionysius soon begins to feel some diffi- 



OF ITALY AND SICILY. 199 

culty about these Aborigines himself, and proceeds 
to observe, there are some who affirm that the 
Aborigines from whom the Romans are descended 
were natives of Italy, a people sprung from no 
other, and these authors say that they were first 
called Aborigines from their having heen the origin 
of their posterity^ (most fathers are so,) or, as the 
Greeks express it, yzvapxag^ or ir^mroyovsig. Others 
pretend that certain vagabonds without house or 
home collected out of many places, assembled 
there by chance, seized on the fastnesses, and 
maintained themselves by robbery and feeding of 
cattle. For this reason the supporters of this 
hypothesis change their name to one more suitable 
to their condition, denominating them Aberrigines, 
to show they were wanderers, and according to 
these the Aborigines are in danger of being con- 
founded with those the ancients called Leleges, — 
(from Laylak, Arabic, a stork), — for this is the 
name they generally give to a vagabond and 
mixed peopl e who have no fixed abode they can 
call their country. (DionysiuSj lib. i. c. 10.) We 
have seen in the preceding paragraph, that the 
Aborigines are said to have been associated with 
the Pelasgi (Pelargoi, Storks), when they drove the 
Siceli out of Latium, and from the mention in the 
present of the Leleges, it is quite clear to my mind 
that the exploits of these Aborigines, and the arrival 
of the Pelasgi in Italy, are one and the same fable. 
105. But it appears that the Siceli, who were 
Autochthones, and who had possessed Latium from 

o 4 



mini II TTTfJ^P^T^if^^^W^^f^ 



200 ON T FIE EARLIEST INHABITANTS 

time immemorial, were not always Siceli, or at any 
rate were not always distinguished by that name, 
they themselves having been Oenotri. Antiochus 
of Syracuse, says Dionysius, a very old historian, 
in his account of the planting of Italy, enumerates 
the most ancient inhabitants in the order in which 
any of them possessed themselves of any part of 
it, and savs that the first who are recorded in 
history to have inhabited that country were the 
Oenotri. His words are : Antiochus the son of 
Xenophanes has given this account of Italy, which 
is the most credible and certain, out of the ancient 
histories : that country which is now called Italy 
was formerly possessed by the Oenotri. Then he 
relates in what manner they were governed, and 
that in process of time Italus came to be their 
king, from whom, changing their name, they were 
called Italians ; that he was succeeded by Morges, 
from whom they were called Morgetes ; and that 
Sicelus being received as a guest by Morges, and 
setting up for himself, divided the nation. Even 
the Oenotri, according to Dionysius, who brings 
them into Italy from Arcadia, had been known by 
two preceding names. In the reign of ^zius they 
were called JEzii ; when Lycaon succeeded to the 
command, Lycaonians ; and after CEnotrus led 
them into Italy, they were for a time called Oeno- 
trians. (Dionysius, lih.i. c. 12.) 

106. Dionysius agrees with Thucydides in re- 
presenting Sicania as possessed by the Sicani, an 
Iberian people, at the period of the arrival of the 



OF ITALY AND SICILY. iiOl 

Siceli from Italy, who communicated their own 
name to it. But he supposes Trinacria to have 
been its oldest name, from its form. Thus, says 
he, the Sicelian nation left Italy, according to Hel- 
lanicus the Lesbian, the third generation before the 
Trojan war, and in the twenty-sixth year of the 
priesthood of Alcyone at Argos. He relates that 
two Italian colonies passed over into Sicily, the 
first consisting of the Elymi, who had been driven 
out of their country by the Oenotri; the second, 
^ve years after, of the Ausones, who fled from the 
lapyges. He makes Sicelus — (Seculum, Latin, 
Time, Saturn) — the king of these people, who, he 
says, gave his name both to them and to the 
island. Philistius the Syracusan, however, computes 
the time when this colony passed into Sicily to 
have been the eightieth before the Trojan war, 
but says that the people who went thither out of 
Italy were neither the Siceli, the Ausones, nor the 
Elymi, but the Ligures (the Ligyes of Herodotus), 
whose leader was Sicelus, who, he says, was the 
son of Italus, — (Hit, Arabic, Time, Saturn ; Ail, 
Hebrew, God), — that in his reign the people were 
called Siceli, and that those Ligures had been 
driven out of their country by the Umbri and 
Pelasgi. (DionysiuSj lib. i. c. 22.) 

107. After all our researches respecting the 
early inhabitants of Greece, Italy, and Sicily, little 
can be established as certain, except that those 
of the two former countries came principally 
from the north-east, and those of the latter from 



c^nvwwmm 



202 ON THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS 

Italy; that they were parts or detacliments from 
the great primitive stock known in Europe as 
Celt^e, and in Asia as Scythians or Scandinavians ; 
that from their migratory way of life, or because a 
Heron was sacred to Scanda, the Hindu Mars, from 
whom Scandinavia derived its name, they deno- 
minated themselves from one of the names of the 
genus of birds Ardea, expressed in various Asiatic 
and European languages, many of which have been 
pointed out ; that the impulse given in a south- 
westerly direction did not originate in ambition 
or the spirit of conquest, but in the pressure of 
the principle of population, or in the tendency of 
society in every stage of its existence, and more 
especially in the nomadic, — when the increase of 
people is limited by the supply of food afforded by 
their flocks and herds, and the increase of the latter 
as obviously and undeniably by the numbers the 
pasture grounds occupied by the tribe are capable 
of supporting, — to augment in a more rapid ratio 
than the supplies of food can be augmented. Car- 
rying on the operation of this principle, we find 
reason for supposing that fifteen or sixteen centuries 
before the Christian era, the principal nations of 
Southern Asia must themselves have been in the 
nomadic or shepherd state, and from the pressure 
of population compelled to cross the great moun- 
tain chain which runs east and west through a 
large portion of Asia. As the Sanskrit, the Persic, 
and the Arabic, and their dialects, the most ancient 
and widely diffused languages of Southern Asia, 



OF ITALY AND SICILY. 203 

were thus carried into Asiatic Scandinavia, or Scy- 
tMa, and as Greece and Italy were chiefly peopled 
thence, — if our theory be true, there ought to be 
much in common between the oldest languages of 
Asia and those of Europe. We have seen that 
such is actually the case between the Sanskrit and 
the Greek, and I now proceed to apply the same 
test to the Latin. 

Sanskrit Words. Analogies in Latin. 

Adya, to-day Hodie, and reading the Sanskrit 

Agha, Oggi, Italian. 

Naman, a name Nomen. 

Antra, an entrail Antra, a cave, the bowels of the 

earth. 

Aya, to go Eo. 

Alka, a tree Alga, a weed. 

Astu, be it so Esto. 

Apa, to obtain Habeo. 

I, to go I, Ito, Imperative of Eo. 

Ita, to go > Itans, going. 

Itio, a going. 

Iti, so, thus, even Ita. 

Idam, this Idem. 

Ira, to go Ire, Infinitive of Eo. 

Ubhau, both, with Anuswarah 1 . , , , , 
after the IJ j^™^"' ^<>*- 

Ulva, the womb Alveus, the belly. 

Rii, the mother of the Gods ...Rhea. 

Li, or Lri (short), the earth Lurre (Cantabrian), the earth. 

Li, or Lri (long), a mother With the Egyptian Article Femi- 
nine prefixed and coalescing, 
Tellure, the Abl. of Tellus. 

Kado, to kill, or hurt Cgedo. 

Karpasa, cotton Carbasus, fine linen. 

Kalama, a pen, or reed Calamus. 

Krita, made Creatus. 

Janus, birth. 

JVofe. This word accounts for one half of the character and 
attributes of the Roman Janus, and the Indian Ganesa. — 
Vide Ovid. Fast. lib. i. 103. 

Janu, the knee Genu. 



204 ON THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS 

Sanskrit Words. Analogies in Latin. 

Gnata, known Notus, Nota. 

Tapa, to heat, or be hot Tepeo. 

Divaspati, Indra Divespiter, Jupiter. 

Nas, the nose Nasus. 

Nida, a nest Nidus. 

Nau, a boat Naus. 

Palasa, green Pales, the Goddess of Pastures. 

Pishta, ground, pounded Pistor, a baker. 

Pra, before Pro, and Prse. 

Prahna, the forenoon Prandium, a refreshment at noon. 

PhuUati, it blows, or expand s...Pullulat. 

Bala, to live Valeo, to be well. 

Manas, the mind Mens. 

Mala, sin ..Mala, Plural of Malum. 

Mira, or Mare, the ocean Mare, the sea. 

Musha, a rat, or mouse ...,Mus. 

Juvan, young Juvenis. 

Eajni, a queen Regina. 

Vachas, voice Vaks, Vox. 

Vaha, a road, a way.. Yeha, and Via. 

Yaha, any vehicle Yeha, a cart. 

Yata, air, wind Yates, a prophet speaking under 

a divine afflatus. 

Yirah, a hero Yir, and Yirtus, courage. 

Yitala, animating Yitalis. 

Silla, a stone, or rock Scylla, in Mythology. 

Suasura, a father-in-law Socer. 

Suasru, a mother-in-law Socrus. 

Shtha, to stand Sto. 

Sa, he, Nom Se, him. Ace. 

Sanhati, an assemblage Senatus. 

Saptama, seventh Septima. 

Sami, half Semi. 

Sitya, corn, grain Sata. 

Statri, he who stays Stator (Jupiter). 

Stamin, strength, power Stamina. 

Hansa, a goose, a gander, a 1 . 

swan J 

Haya, a horse Equa, a mare. 

Hayanah, a year Annus. 

Hi, to go Eo. 

Hita, gone Ita. 

Hvado, to go Yado. 

Hitau, by reason or cause of ...Ita, therefore. 

Nava, new Nova, Fern, of Novus. 

E-atha, a car Rheda. 



OF ITALY AND SICILY. 205 

Sanskrit Words. Analogies in Latin. 

{From WilkirCs Sanskrit Radicals.) 

Aha, go, move Eo. 

Apati, he acquires ...Habet. 

Eti, he goes It. 

Ira, irritate Ira, anger. 

Unda, make wet Unda, any liquid. 

Una, lessen, reduce. 

Note. This appears to be the Un, privative, of the Latin and 

its derivative languages in such words as unable, uncertain, 

unjust, unstable, &c. 

Rich'ha, to congeal Rigeo. 

Tn XT, • • 1 -n r Clotho, one of the Fates, and 

Kiatha, miure, kill i m ^ i t,x 

' ** ' |_ Clades, slaughter. 

Data, collect Data, materials collected for 

forming a judgment. 

Trapa, shame, modesty Turpis, Turpe. 

Dama, be tame, grow tame Domo. 

Damah, tameness, with the Sahidic Re, facere. Domare, ?'. e. 

to cause tameness. 
-p.. ,. , 1 J- J r Divus, a God ( Q?/ere, the Sun). 

Diva, shine, be splendid [-q;^^;^ Goddess. 

Dasa, shine Deus, God {Quere, the Sun). 

Ragha, shine Rex, a king. 

Sata, a lion's mane Seta, a bristle. 

Sutra, thread, string, twine Sutor, a sewer. 

o ,, r Salio, to leap. 

' ^ \ Sally, from a besieged place. 

Kakkha, laugh Cachinno. 

Jivati, he lives Vivat, let him live 

Nakkha, destroy 1 -^ ^^ ^^^ 

INusha, injure J ' 

Lvi. go, move Leve, swift, active. 

Loka, speak, or tell Locutio, speech. 

Sata, happy, at ease Sat, enough. 

Da, give Da, Imp. of Dare. 

Dada, give ; Dadati, he giveth. 
Dedi, I gave ; Dedit, he gave, Latin. 

Dana, give Dono, I give. 

Tadra, tire, be drowsy Tardo, to hinder. 

Phulla, blossom, flower. 

PhuUati Chalicha, the flower-bud expands. 

PuUulat Calyx, Latin. 

{From Wilkin's Sanskrit Grammar.) 

Antra, bowels {Quere) Inter, within. 

Ai'anya, a desert Arena, sand. 



:t. 



206 ON THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS 

Sanskrit Words. Analogies in Latin. 

Aurnavit, he covered ; 3d Pret. of Urnu. 
Oruavit, he decked, or adorned, Latin. 

Erachah, goats Hircus, a goat. 

Etu, let him go Ito. 

^i'-Chi,what {^i^,}-^o. 

Kukshi, a side Coxa. 

Char, go, move Curro, to run. 

Jan, or Jana, a man, or person. 

JVote. This word is deserving of particular attention as form- 
ing the termination of most Nouns Ethnical, as Egyptian, 
Lidian, Persian, Assyrian, Phrygian, Lydian, Phoenician, 
Carthaginian, Grecian, Italian. Also in An, as Roman. 
Egypt — Ian, i. e. a man of 

Egypt. 
Janata, the people collectively... Gentse (Latin), people. 

Tapta, warmed Tepida. 

.Ni, in (Latin, or rather Etruscan), read from right to left. In. 
"Naktan, night Noctem, Ace. of Nox. 

Dur, bad, hard, difficult { Dur," French!" 

Pur, become full Per, in composition. 

Pita, drunk Potus, having drunk. 

Puta, putrid Puteo, to stink. 

Pitamahah, a father's father ...Avus. 

Pra-pitamahah, a great grand \ p^^^.^s^^^g^ 
father J 

Patrivya, a paternal uncle Patruus. 

Patrah, or Patra, a vessel Patera. 

Pa, preserve ; Pali, cause preserve. 

Pali, a shepherd Pales, the Goddess of Shep- 
herds. 

Parva, a section, division Parvus, little. 

Bhava, atitleof Siva...(QMere)Bivia, he being the God of 

destruction and reproduction. 

Mita, measured , Meta, a boundary. 

Mansa, flesh, meat Mensa, a meal. 

Loka, the world Locus, place. 

Sarpa, who moves, or glides ...Serp-ens, a serpent. 

Svapi, cause to sleep Sopitus, laid asleep. 

Div, heaven Divus, a God; Ouranos, Greek; 

Coelus, Latin. 

Dipad, who has two feet Biped. 

Dan, cut Dens, a tooth, i. e. that which 

cuts. 

Vid, be, exist Vita, life. 

Ad, eat Edo. 



OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 207 



CHAPTER IX. 

ON THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS OF GREAT BRITAIN 
AND IRELAND. 

108. The origin of most nations is completely lost 
in the night of antiquity, and in such instances as 
have preserved the semblance of an account we 
clearly perceive that we are much more indebted to 
the inventions of the poet than to the researches of 
the historian, and that the creations of the fancy 
have invaded a province where we would gladly 
meet with nothing but the sober deductions of the 
reason. Either the original inhabitants were the 
immediate progeny of some of the innumerable 
gods, or demi-gods, with which the idle dreams of 
Polytheism had peopled the universe, or they were 
Autochthones, or Aborigines, — terms which in the 
writers of Greece and Rome do little more than 
inform us that they are arrived at the end of all 
their knowledge of the subject, historical or tra- 
ditional, and have nothing further to communicate ; 
or the name of the people suggests that they must, 
as a matter of course, have had an ancestor of the 
same name, and we are lost in an endless succession 
of genealogies, which, as they are merely verbal, 
communicate no information, and establish no fact. 
109. Such being the general state of the case, 
we cannot but consider ourselves fortunate that 



208 ON THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS 

the subject of the primitive inhabitants of Great 
Britain should have attracted the notice and stimu- 
lated the research of one of the most profound and 
original thinkers among all the authors of antiquity, 
the historian Tacitus ; and though the passage is 
short, it is of inestimable value in the absence of 
almost all information that can by the most liberal 
construction of the term be regarded as possessing 
an historical character. The weight of a passage 
in Tacitus is not to be estimated by its length, for 
according to the eloquent and emphatic eulogium 
of him by the president Montesquieu, a congenial 
spirit, he abridged every thing only because he 
perceived every thing. In his Life of Agricola 
he expresses himself on the subject as follows : — 
" Whether the first inhabitants of Britain were 
natives of the island, or adventitious settlers, is a 
question lost in the mists of antiquity. The Britons, 
like other barbarous nations, have no monuments 
of their history. They differ in the make and habit 
of their bodies, and hence various inferences con- 
cerning their origin. The ruddy hair and lusty 
limbs of the Caledonians indicate a German extrac- 
tion. That the Silures (the inhabitants of South 
Wales) were at first a colony of Iberians (Celtae, or 
Celt-Iberians) is concluded, not without probability, 
from the olive tincture of the skin, the natural 
curl of the hair, and the situation of the country, 
so convenient to the coast of Spain. On the side 
opposite to Gaul the inhabitants resemble their 
neighbours on the continent; but whether that 



OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 209 

resemblance is the effect of one common origin, or 
of the chmate in contiguous nations operating on 
the make and temperament of the human body, is 
a point not easily to be decided. All circumstances 
considered, it is rather probable that a colony from 
Gaul took possession of a country so inviting by its 
proximity. You will find in both nations the same 
religious rites, and the same superstition. The two 
languages differ but little. In provoking danger 
they discover the same ferocity; and in the encoun- 
ter, the same timidity. The Britons, however, not 
yet enfeebled by a long peace, are possessed of su- 
perior courage. The Gauls, we learn from history, 
were formerly a warlike people ; but sloth, the con- 
sequence of inactive times, has debased their genius, 
and virtue died with expiring liberty. Among such 
of the Britons as have been some time subdued the 
same degeneracy is observable. The free and un- 
conquered part of the nation retains at this hour 
the ferocity of the ancient Gauls." {Murphy's 
Tacitus — Life of Agricola, chap. xi. ) 

110. I ascribe the more importance to this 
passage of Tacitus from the circumstance that it 
receives an unexpected degree of support from 
another in Livy, in connection with the early popu- 
lation of Ireland. It is well known that the ancient 
Irish denominated themselves Milesians, but the 
reason why they did so I have never heard ex- 
plained. Livy, in his twenty-eighth book, describ- 
ing the operations of the Scipios against the Car- 
thaginians in the north of Spain, mentions a city 

p 



210 ON THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS 

of the name of Orinx, which, he says, was situated 
on the borders of the Milesians, a Spanish nation. 
His words are, " Sita in Melessum hnibus est His- 
pan^e gentis, ager frugifer, argentum etiam incolse 
fodiunt." (Livius, cura Crevier, lib. xxviii. c. 3.) 
Now when we recollect the fact that South Wales, 
as suggested by Tacitus, is directly opposite to the 
coast of Spain, that this also applies to Ireland ; that 
the inhabitants of the North of Spain were Celtse ; 
and that the Celtic language not only was spoken 
from the remotest antiquity in Wales and Ireland, 
but continues to be so to this day ; we attain a high 
degree of probability that both countries received 
their primitive inhabitants from the province of 
Gallicia in Spain, and that the point from which 
they started was Cape Finisterre, the Artabrum, 
or Nerium, of the ancient geographers. 

111. As the passages of Tacitus and Livy carry 
us to Spain, it becomes incumbent to say a few 
words as to the probable mode in which that coun- 
try was peopled, although no very definite informa- 
tion on the subject is to be found. Strabo remarks, 
that if the Iberians had been disposed to assist each 
other, we should not have seen the Carthaginians 
succeed in gaining possession of the best part of 
the country without striking a blow, nor the Tyrians 
before them, and the Celtae after them, who are 
known at the present day, says the geographer, by 
the name of Celt-Iberians and Berons. A passage 
of Varro, quoted by Pliny, without probably aiming 
at historical, and still less rigid chronological, accu- 



OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 211 

racy, mentions the inhabitants of Spain as follows : — 
" In universam Hispaniam M. Yarro pervenisse, 
Iberos et Persas et Phoenicas, Celtasque et Poenos 
tradit." {Plin. Nat. Hist., cum Notts Vario- 
rum, lib. iii. c. 1.) It is remarkable that Yarro 
regards the Iberi not as natives, but as immigrants ; 
and, as we know but one Iberia besides ancient 
Spain, we are under the necessity of referring them 
to the country between the Euxine and the Caspian. 
All the other names refer us unequivocally to Asia, 
with the single exception of the Celtse, and I have 
already shown that that name was nearly co-exten- 
sive with Scythse ; that the Celtse were the oldest 
inhabitants of all the countries of Europe, not 
merely of the West, as asserted by Herodotus, but 
of Italy, and even Greece ; and that as Scythia was 
peopled by the overflowing population of Southern 
Asia, the Sanskrit, the Persic, the Arabic, and their 
dialects, must necessarily have entered into the 
composition of the Celtic, a point which has some 
better foundation than mere a priori reasoning, as 
w^e actually detect them in the analysis of that 
language. 

112. Instead of a thousand cities in Spain, Strabo 
thinks we ought to read villages. His observations 
prove that he was perfectly aware that the first 
and indispensable condition for the existence of a 
large population is a large supply of food; and, 
obvious as this principle is, no one before Malthus 
appears to have been fully aware of it, or, at any 
rate, no one kept it steadily in view and traced all 

p 2 



212 ON THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS 

its consequences. In Strabo's time, some were of 
opinion that the Gallicians, who, according to 
my view of the subject, were the immediate pro- 
genitors of the Irish, Welsh, and Cornish Celtse, 
were entirely destitute of all religion^ and that the 
Celt-Iberians, and their neighbours to the north, 
sacrificed to some anonymous divinity on the night 
of every full moon before their doors, and passed the 
whole night in dancing with their families. We must 
receive with extreme caution and ample allowance, 
the descriptions of the Greeks and Romans of the 
religious systems of other nations, as they some- 
times mislead us by finding their own gods every 
where, or, not finding them, lead us as much astray 
by coming to the rash conclusion that they had no 
religion at all. There can be little doubt that the 
Celt-Iberians worshipped the Moon herself — the 
Ashtaroth of the Old Testament, or, as it is written 
in Greek characters, Astarte. She is also the Isis 
of the Egyptians, and the lo and Diana of the 
Greeks, and, in the character of the Syrian goddess, 
frequently identified, or confounded, with Cybele, 
Ceres, Juno, and Venus. 

113. " The Cassiterides Islands," says Strabo, 
" ten in number^ are situated near each other, far 
advanced in the sea to the north of the port of the 
Artabri (Cape Finisterre). One of them is unin- 
habited ; and those who dwell in the others wear 
black cloaks made of avooI, and tunics which de- 
scend to their heels ; they have a girdle round 
their waist, and walk with sticks; so that they 



M 



OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 213 

bear some resemblance to the Furies in a tragedy. 
The greater part of them live by means of their 
flocks and herds, in the manner of nomades. They 
exchange the tin and lead which they raise from 
their mines, and the hides supplied by their cattle, 
for the crockery-ware, salt, and copper utensils 
which they receive from foreign merchants. For- 
merly the Phoenicians from Gades (Cadiz) fur- 
nished them with those articles, taking especial 
care to conceal the course they steered from all 
the rest of the world. The Romans attempted to 
follow the track of one of their barks, with a view 
of discovering their secret, but the Phanician 
captain, determined to preserve it, deliberately ran 
his ship among sandbanks, thereby insuring the 
destruction of his pursuers. He contrived to save 
himself and his crew on portions of the wreck, and 
the value of the cargo was repaid to him out of the 
public treasury." The name of the Cassiterides, 
as it has come down to us, is no doubt Greek, from 
Kassiteros, Tin, but that word appears to be formed 
from the Persic Jastah, Tin. The letter J, by a 
change of the diacritical points, would become Ch, 
and the final H, by the addition of two diacritical 
points, would be converted into T, making Chastat. 
Pa in Persic is a mark of the oblique case; and 
Deh in Persic is ten. Chastat-ra-deh^ the ten tin 
(islands), which, by dropping the S, approximates 
very closely to the Attic form of the word Kattite- 
rides. There are grounds for believing that these 
islands were known to the Carthaginian Himilco, 

p 3 



214 ON THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS 

and described by Mm under the name of ^strym- 
nides, a word which appears to be cognate with 
the Latin Stannum. He says, that the Phcenicians 
of Cadiz were in the habit of going there to fetch 
tin ; that the islands were near that of Albion, and 
two days' sail from Hibernia, or Ireland ; and that 
to reach them from Cadiz required a laborious 
navigation of four months {Straho^ hb. ii. iii. Geo- 
graphie de Strahon^par Coray^ torn. i. pp. 512. 329.) 
114. In the tiiird Ode of his first Book, Horace 
exclaims, — 

" Illi robur et ses triplix 

Circa pectus erat, qui fragilem truci 
Commisit pelago ratem 
Primus ; — " 

and I think it almost a matter of demonstration 
that that first navigator to, and colonizer of, Bri- 
tain was a Phoenician or a Celt-Iberian. I say so 
because the earliest names of the country point 
unequivocally to such an origin ; and if the country 
had had a name, the new comers could have had no 
inducement to bestow another on it; the proba- 
bility therefore is, that those who discovered and 
named it also colonized it. The name of Cornwall 
appears to be formed beyond a doubt from the 
Arabic words Karn (Radicals Krn), a horn, and 
Uwal (Radicals Awwl), first, being the first cape 
that the Phoenician navigators made, as they steered 
a northerly course. We have positive evidence 
that the Carthaginians, the descendants of the 
Phoenicians, and speaking, probably, precisely the 



OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 215 

same language, denominated a Cape a Horn, as the 
expression occurs in the fragments of the Peri- 
plus of Hanno which have come down to us, 
Eo-TTBpQu KspoLg — Hom of the West, of which 
Mons. Gosselin remarks, in one of his valuable 
Notes to the French translation of Strabo, we 
have discovered that one of the most southern 
promontories of those visited by Hanno, and which 
he denominated the Horn of the West, corresponds 
with Cape Agulon on the coast of Africa. In 
French Cornwall, is Cornouaille ; and in Cotgrave's 
French Dictionary, printed in 1611, we find " Cha- 
valier de Cornouaille, a cuckold, a horned beast ; " 
and " Voyager en Cornouaille, to wear the horn.^^ 
It is also worthy of notice, that in Dr. Pritchard's 
interesting little work. On the Eastern Origin of the 
Celtic Nations,, horn is rendered in Celtic by Corn. 
As Cornwall describes the first Cape^ I think the 
other Arabic word which enters into its formation, 
Uwal, Aoual, or Awwal, first^ describes the first 
land generally^ or Wales^ seen at a distance. Albion, 
the earliest name of England, I conceive to be 
formed from the Hebrew Radical letters Lbn, lohite^ 
with the definite article Hay (h) prefixed and 
coalescing, Hlbn, the white^ and with the Hay con- 
verted into Aleph* (a), and the vowels inserted, 
Albion, so called from its white cliff's as they dis- 
played themselves to the approaching navigators. 
115. The work of Diodorus Siculus contains the 

* Hay is commutable with Aleph. — Gibbs' Geseniui He- 
brew Lexicon. 

p 4 



216 ON THE EAELIEST INHABITANTS 

following notice of England. Beyond Gaul, and 
opposite the Hercynian mountains, which are said 
to be the highest in all Europe, are many islands, 
of which the largest is England. No foreign nation 
of ancient times ever took possession of this island, 
nor did Bacchus, Hercules, or any other of the 
demi-gods, or heroes, ever carry war there. Julius 
Csesar, whose illustrious actions have caused him to 
be enrolled among the gods, was the first of all 
conquerors who rendered it obedient to his arms. 
Having defeated the English, he made them tribu- 
tary to the Eomans. We shall give an account of 
his expedition in due time, and content ourselves 
for the present with describing the figure of the 
island, and the tin it produces. England is trian- 
gular, like Sicily, but all its sides are unequal. That 
of its promontories, which approximates nearest to 
the continent, and Avhich, indeed, is not more than 
one hundred stadia (twelve and a half) miles, dis- 
tant from it, is known by the name of Cantium 
(North Eoreland), and forms the opening of the 
strait. The other promontory, denominated Bele- 
rion (Cape Cornwall, or the Land's End), is four 
days' sail from the Terra Firma. The last, which 
is called Orcas (Dungsbay Head), advances into 
the open sea. The shortest side of England is 
parallel with the Continent of Europe, and seven 
thousand five hundred stadia long (937^ miles). 
The second, from its base to its northern extre- 
mity, fifteen thousand stadia (1875 miles), and 
the last, twenty thousand (2500 miles) : so that 



OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 217 

the circumference of the whole island is about 
42,500 stadia, or 1770 leagues. The English are 
related to be natives of the coutitry, and to retain 
their primitive manners. In war they make use of 
chariots, like the Greek heroes who besieged Troy, 
and their houses are for the most part built with 
stubble and wood. It is their practice in reaping 
to cut off the heads of the stalks, and deposit them 
in underground caves, consuming those which are 
oldest first, by reducing them to flour. Their 
manners are simple, says Diodorus, and far removed 
from the perversity of ours. Sobriety prevails 
among them, and up to this time they are ignorant 
of that effeminate delicacy which follows in the 
train of riches. England is very populous, but the 
air there is extremely cold, the island lying under 
Ursa Major. It is governed by numerous kings, 
who are almost always at peace with each other. 
We shall describe their laws, and the other parti- 
culars of the country, when we relate the history of 
Cassar's expedition into England. The inhabitants 
of Belerion are fond of strangers, and the great 
number of traders who resort there from all parts 
renders them more civilized than the other nations 
of England. It is they who raise the tin from a 
mine, of which they are extremely careful, and 
when they have brought it to the surface they 
purify it by smelting. Having afterwards given it 
the shape of playing dice, they convey it by means 
of waggons to a neighbouring island of England, of 
the name of Ictis (Isle of Wight), selecting to 



218 ON THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS 

reach it the Deriod when the sea is low. It is a 
peculiarity remarked in all the islands situated 
between England and the Continent of Europe, 
that at high tides they are almost completely sur- 
rounded with water, but that afterwards, when the 
ocean retires, the tongue of land which unites them 
with the Terra Firma is laid bare, and they become 
Peninsulas. Finally, the foreign merchants who 
have purchased the tin in the isle of Ictis, transport 
it to Gaul, where they load it on horses, and thirty 
days are occupied in conveying it from the coast 
opposite England to the mouth of the Rhone. 
{Diodorus^ lib. 5. c. 16.) 

116. That part of the work of Diodorus which 
describes \h.^ expedition of Cassar into Britain is 
lost : and when we observe the diligence and intel- 
ligence with which he has described the laws and 
manners of the Egyptians and many other ancient 
people, we cannot but regret that we have not an 
account of those of the Britons by the same hand. 
The deficiency is in some degree supplied by the 
work of Csesar himself; but his notice of Britain is 
too brief to remove all our regret at being deprived 
of the corresponding portion in the History of 
Diodorus. The great dictator has thrown a tran- 
sient and rapid, but keen and comprehensive glance 
on the character and manners of our ancestors, and 
his observations are recorded in language which 
for beautiful simplicity, exquisite purity, and almost 
unparalleled clearness, places his unpretending jour- 
nal, in point of execution, fairly on a level with 



OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 219 

the Anabasis of Xenophon, the most perfect mili- 
tary work of the Greeks, while the history con- 
tained in it is of incomparably more importance to 
a modern, as it describes the rudiments of many of 
our most interesting political and domestic insti- 
tutions. He commences his account by remarking 
that the inland parts of Britain are inhabited by 
those whom fame reports to be the natives of the 
soil. Kecollecting that Csesar saw only a part of 
Kent ; perhaps, by inland, we ought to understand 
remote parts ; for as there appears to be good 
grounds for supposing that Ireland, Wales, and 
Cornwall were peopled from Spain, we ought to 
regard the Celtic possessors of those countries not 
merely as the oldest race, but the oldest inha- 
bitants, and rather as originally settled in those 
spots by the Iberian colonists, than as driven into 
them by the more recent comers of the Gothic or 
Teutonic race. The sea coast, that is, the eastern 
coast, C^sar describes as peopled by Belgians, 
attracted by the love of war and plunder, who, 
passing over from the continent, and settling in the 
country, still retained the names of the several 
states whence they derived their origin. He found 
the island well peopled, full of houses built after 
the manner of the Gauls, and abounding in cattle. 
The natives used brass money and iron rings of a 
certain weight. The former metal was altogether 
imported, and the second produced in small quan- 
tities by some of the provinces on the coast. The 
forest trees corresponded with those of Gaul, with 



220 ON THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS 

the exception of the fir and the beech trees, which 
were not to be found. The Britons thought it 
unlawful to feed on hares, pullets, or geese, but at 
the same time bred them up for their diversion and 
pleasure. And here we are reminded of oriental 
institutions and usages, of the sacred animals of 
Egypt, of the castes of Hindustan, of the clean 
and unclean beasts of Judea, and perhaps of the 
doctrine of the metempsychosis or transmigration 
of souls. The hare was prohibited by the law of 
Moses, but permitted by that of Menu. All web- 
footed birds are forbidden by the Indian legislator, 
and all birds of prey by the Hebrew. Caesar, as 
well as Diodorus, remarks that Britain is trian- 
gular, but his measurements approximate much 
more nearly to the truth than the extravagant ones 
of the latter, though they are still too large. The 
extremity towards Kent (Cantium), whence is the 
nearest passage to Gaul, says he, lies eastward ; the 
other stretches south-west. This side extends 
about five hundred miles; another side looks towards 
Spain westward ; and over against this lies Ireland, 
an island not computed to be above half as large as 
Britain, and separated from it by a space equal to 
that between Britain and Gaul. In this interval 
lies the isle of Mona (Anglesea), besides several 
other smaller islands, of which some write, that in 
the time of the winter solstice, they have night for 
thirty days together. The length of the western 
side is computed at seven hundred miles, while the 
side facing the north-east is thought to extend in 



OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 221 

length about eight hundred miles, makmg the 
circuit of the whole island about two thousand 
miles. Caesar describes the inhabitants of Kent as 
the most civilized of all the Britons, and as differing 
but little in their manners from the Gauls ; and 
agriculture as little practised in the interior of the 
country, the inhabitants subsisting chiefly on flesh 
and milk, and being clad in skins. They were in 
the habit of painting themselves with woad, which 
gave a bluish colour to the skin, wore their hair 
long, and shaved all the rest of their body except 
the head and upper lip. Ten or twelve men were 
accustomed to live together, having their wives in 
common to all, but the progeny was invariably 
ascribed to him who first espoused the mother. 
{Coesar de Bello Gallico, lib. 5. c. 12, 13, 14.) 

117. We may observe that Caesar describes the 
Belgae who came into England from the opposite 
coast as retaining the names of those states of the 
continent from which they derived their origin. 
I am not aware that any of those names have been 
preserved; but we trace them clearly at a subse- 
quent period. The author of the Northern Anti- 
quities says, "It is weU known that the Britons, 
unable to defend themselves from the northern in- 
habitants of their isle, sought for assistance from 
the Danes and Saxons their allies. The ancient 
Saxon Chronicle, published by Gibson, informs us 
that those people who went over and settled in 
Britain were originally of three difl*erent countries. 
One party of them were the ancient Saxons, that 



222 ON THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS 

is to say, tlie people of Lower Saxony ; another 
were the Angles, or English, who inhabited that 
part of the Duchy of Sleswic in the neighbourhood 
of Flensbourg still called Angelen, and consequently 
Danes ; lastly, there passed over into Britain also a 
considerable number of Jutes, inhabitants of Jutland. 
The Saxons occupied the provinces named after 
them, Essex, Westsex, Sussex, and Middlesex. 
The Angles," contmues the author of that Chro- 
nicle, " left their o^vn country totally deserted, and 
so it still continues. This country is situated be- 
tAveen Saxony and Jutland. Their leaders were 
Hengist and Horsa, who derived their pedigree 
from Odin, as do all our kings. From the Angles 
descended all the inhabitants of the east and 
southern parts of England, as well as those of 
Mercia and Northumberland. The Jutes, or Jut- 
landers, possessed only Kent and the Isle of Wight." 
Thus, although this people were not yet known by 
the name of Danes, it is evident that at least two 
thirds of the conquerors of Great Britain came from 
Denmark ; so that when the Danes again infested 
England about three or four hundred years after, 
and finally conquered it towards the latter end of 
the tenth century, they waged war with the de- 
scendants of their own ancestors. {Malletfs North- 
ern Antiquities^ vol. i. p. 259.) With respect to 
the date of the particular settlements, Pinkerton 
says the Jutes seized a corner of Kent in 449 ; they 
increased, and founded the kingdom of Kent about 
460. In 477 the first Saxons arrived, and founded 



OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 223 

the kingdom of South Saxons. In 495 the West 
Saxons arrived; the East Saxons in 527. Hitherto 
there were no Angli in Britain. The first Angli 
who arrived came under Ida to Bernicia in 547. 
The East Angles do not appear till 575. Mercia, 
which Beda says was an Anglic kingdom, but seems 
to me a Frisian, was founded in 585. {Finkerton's 
Dissertation on the Scythians^ p. 194.) 

118. Ireland will not detain us long, as I have 
already anticipated a portion of what I have to 
communicate respecting it. Diodorus Siculus is 
conceived to have mentioned Ireland once, inci- 
dentally, under the name of Iris, which in the 
accusative case would form something very hke 
Erin, still its poetical name. Strabo mentions it 
under the name of lerne. This is so much like 
Yarna, the name by which Cyprus is known to the 
Arabs, that one is tempted to suppose there must 
have been a connexion of some sort ; and Sir Isaac 
Newton in his Chronology, after mentioning Crete, 
says the Phoenicians discovered Cyprus a short 
time before. Eratosthenes says that this island 
was formerly so completely covered with wood as 
to be incapable of all cultivation ; that it was felled 
in the first instance to smelt the copper and silver 
it produces ; and that subsequently the Phoenicians 
made use of this wood to construct ships, and even 
whole navies, when they began to sail on the Me- 
diterranean, that is to say, immediately after the 
Trojan war; and perceiving that even this con- 
sumption was inadequate to the extirpation of the 



224 ON THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS 

forests, they permitted any individual to appro- 
priate to himself whatever quantity of land he 
pleased, on condition of clearing it of trees. This 
was a picture of the larger portion of Europe, and 
the Hercynian forest covered great part of Ger- 
many, and to traverse it in one direction was a 
journey of nine, and in another of forty days. 
{Chronologie de Newton^ p. 196. ; Straho^ lib. xiv.) 
Now we are quite sure that in the instance of 
Cyprus the name of Yarn a was descriptive and 
significant, as Yar in Hebrew signifies a wood ; and 
we have every reason to believe that both the Phoeni- 
cian and Punic were kindred tongues, all three being- 
arranged by philologists under the division of lan- 
guages denominated Shemitic. Now, when we learn 
from Livy that there was a people named Milesians 
in the north of Spain, that is, among the Celt- 
Iberians, and from Tacitus, that South Wales was 
supposed to have been peopled from Iberia, is it 
not more than probable that the same Phoenician 
or Celt-Iberian race who had named Cyprus Yarna 
colonized Ireland, and named it lerne for the same 
reason, namely, its superfluity of wood; while 
another of its names, Milesia, was bestowed by the 
Milesians of Galhcia, sailing from the same quarter 
in the neighbourhood of Cape Finisterre, the Arta- 
brum and Nerium of the ancients. The name of 
Ireland is written Juberna or Juverna by Juvenal 
in his second Satire. 

" Arma quidem ultra 
Littora Jubernse promovimus, et modo captas 
Orcades, ac minima contentos nocte Britannos." 



OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 225 

" Though past Juverna's shores our arms extend, 
Which the late conquer'd Orkneys scarcely bound, 
Of Britain, for contracted nights renown'd." 

Badham's Juvenal. 

119. With respect to the language of the ancient 
Irish, it is agreed on all hands that it was Celtic ; 
and to attempt to prove how largely the Oriental 
languages enter into the composition of that tongue, 
may be regarded as a superfluous task after the very 
able work of Dr. Prichard on the Eastern Origin of 
the Celtic Language. Two or three instances, how- 
ever, I will adduce. So long ago as Sir William 
Jones delivered his celebrated Discourses before the 
Asiatic Society, it was suspected that some analogy 
existed between the ancient Irish and the Sanskrit, 
a point respecting which there can no longer be the 
smallest doubt. Colonel Yallancey, says Sir Wil- 
liam, whose learned inquiries into the ancient Htera- 
ture ^ of Ireland are highly interesting, assures me 
that Crishna in Irish means the Sun ; and we find 
Apollo and Sol considered by the Koman poets as 
the same deity. I am inclined, indeed, to believe 
that not only Crishna or Vishnu, but even Brahma 
and Siva, when united and expressed by the mystic 
word Om, were designed by the first idolaters to 
represent the solar fire ; but Phoebus, or the Orb of 
the Sun personified, is adored by the Indians as the 
God Surya, whence the sect who pay him parti- 
cular adoration are called Sauras. ( Worhs^ vol. iii. 
p. 378.) In Wilson's Sanskrit Dictionary I find the 
word Krishanu^ with the signification of fire^ and 



226 ON THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS 

entertain no doubt that at an early period of Hindu 
history Krishna, or Crishna, was a literal name of 
the sun. 

120. Sir William Betham, in his Etruria Celtica, 
a recent publication, informs us that in Irish the 
word Bidim signifies I am, while in Persic, Budim 
signifies I was; and that in Irish, Bud signifies 
was, while in Persic, Bud is the third person pre- 
terite of the defective verb Hastan, to be, and sig- 
nifies he was. Again, Sir William Betham informs 
us that in Irish, Anna means food; and in Sanskrit 
we find the same word, letter for letter, with the 
same signification. According to the same autho- 
rity, Grein in Irish signifies the sun ; in Sanskrit 
we have Grini, the sun, and in Greek, Apollo Gry- 
neus, also a name of the sun. The commentators 
inform us that Apollo acquired the epithet of Gry- 
neus, because he was worshipped at Gryneum, or 
Grynium, a city in Asia Minor ; but I believe that 
this is putting the efiect for the cause, and that 
Apollo was called Gryneus, because Grini in San- 
skrit signifies the sun, and the Grecian Apollo is 
the sun personified ; and that the city of Gryneum 
derived its name from the circumstance of having 
been sacred or dedicated to Apollo, who was wor- 
shipped there under his Indian name of Grini, with 
a Greek termination. From these facts we may at 
least suspect that the ancient Irish, like all the 
early race of mankind, were Sabians, or sun wor- 
shippers, of which Fire was the type, and that the 
objects of their adoration were the sun, moon. 



OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 227 

planets, stars, in a more especial manner, and the 
elements, or powers of nature generally, tlie eartli, 
the sea, the winds, &c. By accounting for the 
earliest inhabitants of Ireland, we also account for 
those of Scotland. The Highlanders of the latter 
country are clearly the same race with the ancient 
Irish ; and the Celtic, slightly varied, is the common 
language of both. There can be little doubt that 
the country was peopled from Ireland, so far as 
regards the Highland or Celtic portion of its inha- 
bitants. 



q2 



228 ON ETYMOLOGY IN GENEEAL. 



CHAPTER X. 

ON ETYMOLOGY IN GENERAL. 

121. If I remember rightly, Fielding, in his " Tom 
Jones," has written a chapter to prove that a man 
will write the better for knowing something of the 
subject about which he writes; and though this 
perhaps will hardly be disputed, it will probably 
not be so readily admitted that no dictionary can 
be executed in the best way unless the writer 
brings to his task a theory of language^ which, if not 
altogether true (an achievement in the present state 
of our knowledge hardly to be expected), shall at 
least contain an approximation to the truth, and at 
any rate not be essentially and fundamentally erro- 
neous ; for language is an immense and almost un- 
bounded ocean, and if the voyager has not a 
tolerably clear idea of his destination, there is little 
chance of his ever reaching the harbour to which 
he is bound. The author of perhaps the best En- 
glish dictionary in existence, and certainly the best 
so far as regards the etymology of the language, 
has the following passage on the subject: — "When 
this work was in the press," says Mr. Webster, in 
his Introduction, page 43., '' I first obtained a sight 
of a history of the European languages, by the late 
Dr. Alexander Murray, professor of Oriental Ian- 



ON ETYMOLOGY IN GENERAL. 229 

guages in tlie university of Edinburgh, and from a 
hasty perusal of the first volume I find this learned 
professor studied the European languages with much 
attention and profit. He has gone farther into the 
origin and formation of languages than any author 
whose works I have read, and his writings unfold 
many valuable principles and facts. But he formed 
a theory which he attempted to support, in my opi- 
nion, with little success : at least, on his principles, 
all the usual rules of etymology are transgressed, 
and all distinction between words of different radical 
letters abandoned. According to his theory, nine 
words are the foundation of language, viz. ag, wag, 
hwag, bag or bwag (of which fag and pag are 
softer varieties), dwag, thwag or twag, gwag or 
cwag, lag and hlag, mag, nag and hnag, rag and 
hrag, swag. By the help of these nine words and 
their compounds all the European languages have 
been formed.'^ I have no wish or intention to make 
any comments on this theory of Dr. Murray, regard- 
ing it merely as one of those innumerable halluci- 
nations by which scholars and speculative men have 
too often been led astray. Though these nine words 
may by possibility have been suggested by the nine 
Muses, I feel myself bound to say that, except in 
the single quality of number, these uncouth mono- 
syllables have little in common with the lovely 
sisters, and if all our labours as etymologists are to 
terminate only by bringing us to them, we shall 
stand like Bruce at the termination of the great 
object of his journey, the fountains of the Nile, with 

Q 3 



230 ON ETYMOLOGY IN GENERAL. 

no emotion except that of regret at having under- 
taken it. 

122. Mr. Webster's own theory of language ap- 
pears to me to be as untenable as that of Dr. Murray 
in substance, though less starthng in form. He 
remarks, that as the verb is the principal radix of 
other words, and as the proper province of this part 
of speech is to express action^ almost all the modi- 
fications of the primary sense of the verb may be 
comprehended in one word — to move ; and that 
the principal varieties of motion, or action, may be 
expressed by the following verbs : — 

1. To drive, throw, thrust, send, urge, press. 

2. To set, ^^^ lay. But these are usually from 
thrusting, or throwing do^vn. 

3. To strain, stretch, draw; whence holding, 
binding, strength, power, and often health. 

4. To turn, wind, roll, wander. 

5. To flow, to blow, to rush. 

6. To open, part, split, separate, remove, scatter. 
— See No. 16. 

7. To swell, distend, expand, spread. 

8. To stir, shake, agitate, rouse, excite. 

9. To shoot as a plant, to grow; alhed to No. 1. 

10. To break, to burst ; allied sometimes to No. 3. 

11. To lift, raise, elevate; alhed to No. 9. 

12. To flee, withdraw, escape, to fly ; often aUied 
to No. 1. 

13. To rage, to burn ; alhed to No. 7. and 8 

14. To fall, to fail ; whence fading, dying, &c. 



ON ETYMOLOGY IN GENERAL. 231 

15. To approach, come, arrive, extend, reach. 
This is usually the sense of gaining^ No. 34. 

16. To go, walk, pass, advance; allied to No. 6. 

17. To seize, take, hold; sometimes allied to 
No. 31. 

18. To strike, to break; allied to No. 1. 

19. To swing, to vibrate. No. 29. 

20. To lean, to incline; allied to the sense of 
wandering, or departing. 

21. To rub, scratch, scrape ; often connected 
with driving, and with roughness. 

22. To swim, to float. 

23. To stop, cease, rest ; sometimes at least from 
straining, holding, fastening. 

24. To creep, to crawl; sometimes connected 
with scraping. 

25. To peel, to strip ; whence spoiling. 

26. To leap, to spring; allied to No. 9. and 1. 

27. To bring, bear, carry; in some instances 
connected with producing, throwing out. 

28. To sweep. 

29. To hang. No. 19. 

30. To shrink, or contract ; that is, to draw. — 
See No. 3. 

31. To run, to rush forward; allied to No. 1. 

32. To put on, or together, to unite; allied to 
No. 1. and 3. 

33. To knit, to weave. 

34. To gain, to win, to get. No. 15. 

" These," continues Mr. Webster, " and a few more 

Q 4 



232 ON ETYMOLOGY IN GENEEAL. 

verbs, express the literal sense of all the primary roots^ 
But it must be remarked that all the foregoing sig- 
nifications are not distinct ; so far from it, that the 
whole may be brought under the signification of a 
very few words. The EngHsh words to send, throw, 
thrust, strain, stretch, draw, drive, urge, press, em- 
brace the primal"!/ sense of a great part of all the verbs 
in every language which I have examined. Indeed 
it must be so, for the verb is certainly the root of 
most words ; and the verb expresses motion^ which 
always implies the application of force." If this 
theory of Mr. Webster's were true, if almost all the 
words in every language are derived from verbs, and 
all those verbs ultimately resolvable into the nine 
above specified (here we have the number of the 
Muses again), etymology would indeed be of all 
sciences the most delusory, and its labours the 
most useless ; for as in our backward journey we 
should only be travelling towards these nine highly- 
favoured and mystic verbs, at every step we moved, 
the meaning of words, instead of becoming more 
clear and definite, would become more and more 
loose and general until it nearly disappeared alto- 
gether ; and such etymology might well remind us 
of an invidious description of castellated Gothic 
architecture, that it consists of a series of inter- 
minable passages leading to uninhabitable apart- 
ments. 

123. It has been frequently remarked by specu- 
lative writers that we may trace a resemblance 
between the intellectual and the material world; 



ON ETYMOLOGY IN GENERAL. 233 

and this is so true, that most of the faculties and 
operations of the former have been explained and 
illustrated by some analogy, real or fancied, with 
what was observed in the latter. Indeed, since the 
publication of Locke's Essay on Human Under- 
standing, many metaphysicians have been of opinion 
that the immense fabric of human acquirement is 
built up of the impressions made on the mind 
through the medium of the senses, and that in the 
whole process of the accumulation of knowledge. 
Sensation supplies the rude materials with which 
Eeflection as an architect works, and that our most 
complex and abstract ideas are all susceptible of 
being analysed and retraced to impressions on the 
organs of sense from external objects. It appears 
to me that there is a close analogy in many respects 
between Chymistry and Language, and that the 
labours of the Etymologist bear no inconsiderable 
resemblance to the manipulations of the Operator. 
The history of language exhibits one instance of 
analytical power compared with which the triumphs 
of the crucible, the blow-pipe, and even the voltaic 
battery itself, as hitherto recorded, are absolutely 
as nothing, — I mean that analysis of all the sounds 
of the human voice, which must necessarily have 
preceded the formation of an alphabet, and of 
which it is an indispensable condition. In what- 
ever light we contemplate hieroglyphical and alpha- 
betical writing, we can discover little in common 
between them, little gradation or approximation, 
by which we can conceive the latter to have grown 



234 ON ETYMOLOGY IN GENERAL. 

out the former. Hieroglyphics may be, and from 
the testimony of history appear to have been, im- 
proved and simplified indefinitely, without leading 
mankind in the direction of alphabetical writing ; 
and indeed the perfection of the hieroglyphical 
system, as in China, would seem to have operated 
as a virtual sentence of perpetual exclusion against 
the alphabetical, as it removed the strongest of all 
motives to invention, that of necessity. In what- 
ever form we find the hieroglyphic, in the com- 
bined picture of Mexico, in the insulated objects 
of Egypt, in the arbitrary characters of China, 
it is the sign of things^ and, being to a certain 
extent a natural language, represents things di- 
rectly and immediately ; on the other hand, in 
whatever condition we find alphabetical characters, 
whether they are few or many, simple or complex, 
perfect or imperfect, they are always the signs of 
sounds^ altogether arbitrary or conventional, and 
represent things only through the instrumentality 
of words. How fine was that intellectual chymistry 
which first remarked that the whole mass of human 
speech is made up of a few perpetually recurring 
sounds ; next resolved those sounds into their 
simple articulations, and finally conceived the happy 
idea of denoting or representing each elementary 
sound of the human voice by a distinct character 
or letter. Whoever accomplished this greatest 
triumph of human ingenuity and invention, whether 
it was the Egyptian Taut, the Grecian Orpheus, or 
some other founder of empire or civihzer of society, 



ON ETYMOLOGY IN GENERAL. 235 

he may well be regarded as among the most 
splendid benefactors of the human race, — 

" Inventas aut qui vitam excoluere per artes ; 
Quique sui memores alios fecere merendo." 

Yma. jEneid. lib. vi. 663. 

The province of the Etymologist is more limited, 
and his aim less ambitious. Regarding language 
as formed, and diversities of language as established, 
words are the elements of which he is in pursuit, 
and he does not attempt to carry his analysis 
beyond them. To detect the gradual changes pro- 
duced in words by caprice or fashion, by careless 
pronunciation or imperfect orthography; to com- 
pare the various dialects of the same language, to 
ascend from them to the different languages of the 
same family, and gradually extend his researches 
throughout the various famihes of language; to 
mark the modifications produced in a primitive 
root by Prefixes, Infixes, and Affixes, or changes 
made in the beginning, middle, or end of a word, 
until he discovers that root in its simple or ele- 
mentary state, is the business of Etymology ; and 
when the research is completely successful, I believe 
that root will generally, perhaps always, be found 
to be a Noun Substantive, and to denote some 
material external object, from which it was gradu- 
ally extended to the intellectual and the internal, 
the moral and the religious, from analogies in some 
instances too subtle and recondite to be traced, 
while in others they are so clear and obvious, as to 



236 ON ETYMOLOGY IN GENERAL. 

Strike the most careless observer, and force convic- 
tion on the most sceptical mind. 

124. With all possible respect for the attainments 
of Mr. Webster, and the work he has produced, I 
shall now proceed to make some remarks on dif- 
ferent etymologies proposed by him, not so much 
with a view of pointing out what I conceive to be 
his mistakes, as of illustrating and enforcing the 
principles I have adopted, that the business of 
Lexicography can never be performed in the best 
manner unless we bring to the task a true theory 
of language, as the latter circumstance will exert a 
degree of influence on the former more powerful 
and perpetual than could have been supposed by 
any one who has not made the subject an object of 
close attention and examination. " Another cause of 
obscurity in the affinity of languages," says Mr. 
Webster (Introduction, p. 11.), "and one that seems 
to be mostly overlooked, is the change of the primary 
sense of the radical verb. In most cases this change 
consists in a slight deflection, or difl'erence of ap- 
plication, which has obtained among different 
families of the same stock. In some cases the 
literal sense is lost or obscured, and the figurative 
only is retained. The first object in such cases is 
to find the primary or literal sense, from which the 
various particular applications may be easily 
deduced. Thus we find, in Latin, hbeo, libet, or 
lubeo, lubet, is rendered to please, to hke ; 
lubens, willing, glad, cheerful, pleased; libenter, 
lubenter, willingly, gladly, readily. What is the 



ON ETYMOLOGY IN GENEEAL. 237 

primary sense, the visible or physical action from 
which the idea of willing is taken ? I find, either 
by knowing the radical sense of willing, ready, in 
other cases, or by the predominant sense of the ele- 
ments Lb^ as, in Latin, Labor, to slide. Liber, free, 
&c., that the primary sense is to move, inchne, or 
advance towards an object, and hence the sense of 
willing, ready, prompt. Now this Latin word is 
the English Love, German Lieben, Liebe, Lubet me 
ire, I love to go ; I am inclined to go ; I go with 
cheerfulness: but the affinity between love and 
lubeo has been obscured by a slight difference of 
application among the Romans and the Teutonic 
nations." 

125. So far Mr. Webster; and on this passage I 
have three remarks to make. 

1. That the difficulties will not be solved by an 

inquiry into the changes of the sense of the 
radical verb, as the root of the whole is not 
a verb, but a noun substantive. 

2. That the solution of the whole depends on our 

ascertaining the exact meaning of the ele- 
ments Lb ; and that if our explanation of 
this word is true, the passage will be en- 
lightened; if false, obscured. 

3. That the explanation cannot be found in the 

Latin, the Teutonic, or any of the laguages 

of Europe, and that we must have recourse 

to those of Asia. 

I shall exemplify the formations from the root 

Lb rather minutely, as an illustration of my ideas 



238 ON ETYMOLOGY IN GENEEAL. 

of what Et3miology ought in every instance to at- 
tempt to do, and of what it can accomplish when 
completely successful. 

Lb, Arabic, radical letters, the heart. 

Lbb, by writing the teschdid over the second 

letter, which doubles it. 
Lubb, written by Kichardson as pronounced, the 

the heart, the soul. 
Lubh, Sanskrit, long for, covet. — Wilkins' 

Grammar^ page 220. 
Lub-Ego, by contraction, Lubeo, Latin. (Not 

used. ) 
Lub-Ens, willing. The Asiatic root combined 

with the Latin active participle. 
Love, English. By reading the u as o, the b as 

V, and adding a final e. 
Lb, Hebrew, radical letters, the heart. 

Pointed with tzairay (* •), and usually pro- 
nounced Laib ; but as this point appears to 
have been derived from the diacritical points 
of the Arabic letter yood (I), the most 
ancient Hebrew pronunciation probably was 
Lib, and hence 
Lib-Ego, by contraction Libeo, Latin. (Not 

used. ) 
Lib-Ens, willing. 

Liebe, love, German, from Laib, Hebrew, heart, 

as the word is usually pronounced with the 

points. 

The English reader will now perceive that the 

English word Love, and the German Liebe, were 



ON ETYMOLOGY IN GENERAL. 239 

derived from a common root, and differ only because 
the Shemitic languages primarily were probably all 
written witbout the vowel points, while the vowels 
themselves were entirely omitted ; a copious, perhaps 
the most copious, source of diversity in all European 
words derived from Asiatic roots. Again, at page 22. 
of his Introduction, Mr. Webster says, " Faith and 
behef seem to imply a resting on, or a leaving (these 
meanings appear to me to be diametrically opposite). 
It is certain that the English word helief is a com- 
pound of the prefix Be, and Leaf, leave, permission. 
To believe one, then, is to leave with him, to rest, 
or suffer to rest with him, and hence not to dispute, 
contend, or deny." The English word Belief is, 
indeed, compounded of the prefix Be and a Root ; but 
what is that Root ? Not, I apprehend, leaf, leave, 
or permission ; but the Hebrew word Laib, heart, 
mind, purpose, intention, understanding, know- 
ledge, insight. {Gihls' Gesenius' Hehrew Lexicon.) 
Be Laib, in the heart, or mind, " The fool hath said 
in his heart, there is no God," i. e. hath believed : a 
man's belief is the thought of his heart ; his rehgious 
belief is that which is deepest in his heart; and 
perhaps of aU subjects, since the time of Luther, 
that respecting which Protestants are least dis- 
posed to ask leave or permission in any shape. 
With respect to the change of the final letter in 
Belief, every Hebrew scholar knows that the second 
letter of that alphabet is either B or Y, and few 
will be disposed to deny that both the power and 
form of the Roman F were derived from the Sama- 



240 ON ETYMOLOGY IN GENEEAL. 

ritan, or Phoenician Vau. Our word Believe ex- 
emplifies the Oriental, and Belief the Eoman or- 
thography, 

126. Few, I apprehend, will be inclined to doubt, 
after reading the above, that all the European words 
named are clearly traceable to Oriental roots, but 
if they should, there is another argument in reserve 
from analogy. In words the most widely dissimilar 
both to the eye and the ear we shall discover, on 
a close investigation, that the march or process of 
the human mind in their formation has been pre- 
cisely similar, and consequently that their etymolo- 
gies mutually illustrate, support, and confirm each 
other. As an instance, I think it may be proved 
conclusively that the Greek Boulomai, the Latin 
Lubeo, Diligo, and Yolo, and the English Will, are 
essentially the same word as to meaning, though so 
different as regards etymology. Eespecting Lubeo, 
I have no more to say, but the formation of Diligo 
and Volo I take to be as under. 

Dl, Persic, radical letters, the heart, the mind, 
the soul. 

Dil, written by Eichardson as pronounced. 

Dil-Ego, or Diligo, Latin, to love, to esteem 
highly. (Facciolati.) 

DHig-Ens, Latin, a verbal adjective. 

Dilig-entia, Latin, a verbal substantive. 

It is deserving of notice that the meanings of the 
Latin verb are derived from the heart, as the seat 
of feeling J those of the substantive from regarding 



ON ETYMOLOGY IN GJENERAL. 241 

it as the seat of thought^ and those of the adjective 
from both senses. 

Bal (Arabic), the heart, mind, soul. 

Bal (Persic), the heart, the mind, love. 
Now triliterals in both languages, but at a very- 
remote period, probably written without the vowel, 
and hence 

Boule (Greek), the will. 

Boulomai (Greek), I will, contracted from Boule 
and Eimi. 

Yolo (Latin), I will, contracted from the Oriental 
root, and Ego. 

Will (English), immediately from the Latin Yolo, 
but remotely from the Oriental Bal, by reading the 
a as z, and doubling the final /. 

127. Again, Mr. Webster, at p. 23. of his Intro- 
duction, says, " The English root (Latin, radix) is 
only a particular application of rod, and ray, Ra- 
dius, that is, a shoot." Here, again, to find the 
true etymology of the English word Root, I believe 
we must go farther for it than Italy, and that it is 
the Eyptian Rat, the foot, applied secondarily to 
plants, from an analogy with the parts of the 
human body, the foot serving to support the man, 
as the root does the plant ; and I am somewhat 
confirmed in this notion, from believing a vulgar 
Devonshire word for Root, Maur, to be cognate 
with the Egyptian Mor, to tie, or fasten, being in 
another point of view that which attaches the plant 
to the ground. Mr. Webster, in the body of his 
work, derives the word Obedience through the 

R 



242 ON ETYMOLOGY IN GENERAL. 

French, from the Latin Obedientia, probably very 
correctly ; but, if I am not much mistaken, we shall 
have a clearer idea of the formation and meaning 
of the word, by tracing the Latin to an Oriental 
root. In Hebrew we find the Eadical letters Abd, 
with the vowel points pronounced Ebed, signifying 
a servant, which, pronounced Obed in Latin, and 
followed by the active participle Ens, forms Obediens, 
with the meaning of being a servant; so that the 
man who subscribes himself your obedient, really 
says the same thing as he who subscribes himself 
your obedient servant. 

128. Etymology, then, is that branch or divi- 
sion of grammar which has for its object the reso- 
lution of words consisting of more than one syllable 
into their elements, or roots, and the tracing of 
these roots, or monosyllables, into their primitive 
language. There is strong ground for believing 
that one primitive language prevailed among man- 
kind, and that it was Monosyllabic, and probably of 
this language not a single root is lost, but still in 
existence in precisely its original sense in some part 
of the world or other ; and there are several reasons 
which induce me to believe that the spoken lan- 
guage of the Chinese is, perhaps, one of the oldest 
specimens extant of the primitive language of the 
human race. These roots have been altered, or 
disguised, chiefly in three ways : by Prefixes, or addi- 
tions to the beginning of a word, of which we have 
many examples in Greek ; by Infixes, or additions to 
the middle of a word, of which the Egyptian language 



ON ETYMOLOGY IN GENERAL. 243 

exhibits some of the most remarkable instances ; 
and by Affixes, or changes of termination, which 
are found in some shape or other in all the lan- 
guages of Europe, though in a much less degree 
than in those of Greece and Eome. But the chief 
cause of the alteration of form in language, and the 
real reason why various languages do not in reality 
diflPer so much from each other as they appear 
to do, has not been sufficiently attended to ; for if 
the primary language of mankind was monosyllabic, 
as I believe it to have been, it necessarily fol- 
lows that all dissyllables, trisyallables, and tetrasyl- 
lables are not ivords hut sentences^ that is, com- 
binations of words. When etymology, by a dili- 
gent analysis of all existing languages, as well 
refined as rugged, written as unwritten, shall have 
discovered all the radical syllables with their exact 
original signification, we shall perhaps find that all 
the words in every language are made up of a small 
number of radicals perpetually recurring and va- 
riously combined, as all the articulate sounds of 
every language are represented by about from four- 
teen to twice or thrice as many letters. 

129. Etymology, up to this time, has been so 
unsuccessful in establishing clear and definite prin- 
ciples, or so unfortunate in their application, that 
many persons regard it as bearing the same relation 
to Grammar as Astrology does to Astronomy, 
Alchemy to Chemistry, or Perpetual Motion to 
Mechanics ; and for its slow progress and degraded 

B 2 



244 OH ETYMOLOGY IN GENERAL. 

state, perhaps the Greeks and Romans are prin- 
cipally responsible. According to my view of the 
subject, the chief, if not the sole, business of ety- 
mology is to endeavour to trace the origin of the 
words of one language to another and a diiFerent 
language in which they retain their primitive 
meaning, and in which, I believe, they will gene- 
rally be found existing as Nouns- Substantive. But 
the Greeks and Romans, despising all the rest of 
mankind as barbarians^ despised their languages 
also, and from this circumstance were stopped in 
limine in all their etymological inquiries for want 
of the necessary materials and qualifications ; and 
hence few attempts can be less felicitous than their 
labours in this way, which hardly deserve the name 
of etymology, and seldom proceed beyond a painful, 
and at the same time trifling, Orthoepy, or the 
division of a simple word into syllables, or of a 
compound one into its elements, and in a mode that 
is frequently ridiculous, and hardly ever leads to 
any convincing and satisfactory result. 

130. The labours of the Etymologist are some- 
times rewarded by the discovery of words which 
possess a sort of character of universality as we 
trace them with slight modifications in most known 
languages, and perhaps by a close and comprehen- 
sive survey of language, with an especial view to 
etymology, this class of words might be so much 
enlarged as to throw a clearer light on the nature 
and progress of speech, and facilitate the acquire- 
ment of languages in a greater degree than can at 



ON ETYMOLOGY IN GENERAL. 245 

present be easily conceived. For instance, among 
the names of the 214 Chinese keys, or elementary 
characters, we find, 

Jin, a man, mankind. 

Jan (Sanskrit), man individually, or collectively. 

This is a very remarkable word, as forming the 
termination of most Nouns ethnical in the lan- 
guages both of ancient and modern Europe, as well 
as of those of the East. 

An Egypt-ian, i. e. a man of Egypt. 

A Pers-ian, - - - Persia. 

An Ind-ian, - - - India, or Ind. 

An Ital-ian, - - - Italy. 

A Grec-ian, - - - Greece. 

In some of the European languages, however, 
this word is not naturalized, and we are obliged to 
say a Ger-man, a French-man, an English-man, i. e. 
to substitute the translation of the Sanskrit Jan 
for Jan itself. 

131. Hiat (Arabic), life; and, by metonymy, a 
living creature, a man. 

This word will account for the greater part of 
such Nouns ethnical as terminate in Ite instead of 
Ian ; as, for instance, Gen, xv. 19. : ^' The Kenites, 
and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites." 20. ; 
*'And the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the 
Eephaims." 21.: "And the Amorites, and the 
Canaanites, and the Gergashites, and the Jebus- 
ites." It is deserving of notice that all these 
nations appear to have been a Shemitic people, and 

B 3 



246 ON ETYMOLOGY IN GENEKAL. 

of course spoke a language approximating more or 
less closely to the Arabic. The ancient name of 
Jerusalem was Jebus. — Judges xix. 10, 11. 

Jebus, which is Jerusalem ; 

Hiat (Arabic), life, a living creature ; 
by contraction, Jebusite, or man of Jebus. 

But this Arabic word Hiat is so far from being 
limited to the termination of Nouns ethnical, like 
the Sanskrit Jan, or Ian, that we find it in innu- 
merable forms in the languages both of ancient 
and modern Europe, a few of which I shall par- 
ticularize. In the following instances it differs 
only by a shade from the meaning already affixed 
to it, and indeed can hardly be said to differ at all 
except in the circumstance of being applied to 
describe imaginary instead of real beings. 

Dru (Sanskrit), or Drus (Greek), a tree; 

Hiat (Arabic), life ; 
by contraction. Dryad, a wood nymph ; and Druid, 
a priest living in the woods. 

Nahar (Hebrew), a river, the sea ; 

Hiat (Arabic), life ; 
by contraction, Nereid, a sea nymph. 

Oros (Greek, a mountain ; 

Hiat (Arabic), life ; 

Oread, a mountain nymph ; a creation of the ima- 
gination of the Greek poets. 

At p. 24. of his Introduction Mr. Webster says, 
" Veritas in Latin is Wahrheit in German, the 
first syllable in each is the same word, the last 



ON ETYMOLOGY IN GENERAL. 247 

diiFererit." I notice this to observe that I believe 
the second syllable of 

Yer 

It 

As, as well as the second of Wahrheit, is the Arabic 
Hiat, life, state of life, state or condition in general, 
and consequently that they are precisely identical. 
I would also remark that the same Arabic word 
Hiat, contracted into It, enters into the composition 
of such Latin words as Falsitas, Frugalitas, Crudel- 
itas, Humanitas, Humilitas, Fraternitas ; of Ger- 
man words in Heit, and perhaps in Keit, unless the 
latter should be the Arabic Khiyat, way ; and of 
English words in Head and Hood, as Maidenhead, 
Widowhood, Manhood, Priesthood. 

132. If we could meet with a Latin noun ter- 
minating in Itas, of which we could be quite con- 
fident as to the etymology of the first syllable, we 
should probably be able to throw some additional 
light on the formation of words (or rather of sen- 
tences, for such, words of this description are), and 
on the mode in which the primary meaning of a 
word is gradually extended ; and such is the case 
with the Latin word Hilaritas, to which Facciolati 
afiixes the significations of cheerfulness, mirth, 
gaiety, joyfulness, jollity, alacrity, good-humour, 
merriment, hilarity. In Wilkin's Sanskrit Gram- 
mar, page 231., I find the Dhato, or verbal root 
Hil, with the signification of sport, wanton, dally ; 
but, believing that these verbal roots, and all 

R 4 



248 ON ETYMOLOGY IN GENERAL. 

verbs whatever, were primarily derived from 
nouns, I resort to Wilson's Sanskrit Dictionary, 
where T find Hila, or Hilah, as a noun substantive, 
with the explanations of the sun, dalliance, wanton 
sport. Hil, in the third person of the present 
tense, forms Hilati, he dallies; which induces me 
to believe that the Ar, the second syllable of 
Hilaritas, is redundant, and I account for the form- 
ation of the word as under : — 

Hila (Sanskrit), the Sun; 

Ea (Persic), mark of the oblique case, or JEolic, 
and Doric E, redundant. 

Hiat (Arabic), life, state, condition ; 

As, Latin termination. 
The primary meaning of Hilaritas I conceive to 
have been sunshine, or a state of sunshine, whence, 
by an obvious analogy, its meaning was extended 
to denote a mental habit or affection, cheerfulness 
being the sunshine of the mind ; and we meet with 
obvious traces of the former in the Latin word 
Hilaria (vide Facciolati), and of the latter in Hila- 
ritas, of which the meanings are given above from 
Facciolati. 

133. Ee (Sahidic), Er (Coptic), to be, to do. 

The former appears to constitute the termi- 
nation of Latin verbs in the infinitive mood, 
Amare, Monere, Eegnare, and Audire, though we 
cannot always trace the noun substantive roots. 

Amor (Latin), love. 

Ee (Sahidic), to be, by contraction, Amare, to 
love, to be in a state of love. 



ON ETYMOLOGY IN GENERAL. 249 

Oneiros (Greek), a dream, from Oni, like Coptic. 

Re, to be or do, 

Sahidic. 
Os, Greek termi- 
nation, 
that is, that process of thought which, during sleep, 
repeats the similitudes of our waking hours in a 
wild and disorderly manner. AVe do not find either 
Re, or Er, in Egyptian as Nouns, but in other lan- 
guages we have with a guttural — 

Kara (Sanskrit), agent or maker. 

Kar, and Gar (Persic), with the same signification. 

Cheir (Greek), the hand, probably cognate 
with all ; 
And without the guttural or aspirate, we find 
the Coptic Er in an infinity of English words, 
as 

Murder-Er, he who commits murder. 

Adulter-Er, he who commits adultery. 

Talk-Er, he who talks. 

Walk-Er, he who walks. 

Swimm-Er, he who swims. 

Repeat-Er, he who repeats. 

134. There is a Slavonic word, which throws 
much light on the formation of a large class of 
Latin words which have been adopted into most of 
the languages of modern Europe. 

Tiud, Naturales Indoles. {DohrowshVs Grammar^ 
p. 174.) 

Whoever remembers the immense number of 
Latin nouns terminating in Tudo, will have a much 



250 ON ETYMOLOGY IN GENERAL. 

clearer idea of their meaning, after seeing the 
above Slavonic word, than he ever had before. 
As Tiud is expressive of constitution or natural 
disposition, its derivative Tudo is equally appli- 
cable to all habitudes of the mind, the heart, or 
the body ; as 

Turpi-tudo, a habit of ^vickedness. 

Amari-tudo, a habit of bitterness. 

Molli-tudo, a habit of softness. 

Magni-tudo, a habit of greatness. 

Pleni-tudo, a habit of fulness. 

Pulchri-tudo, a habit of beauty. 

Yicissi-tudo, a habit of change. 

Hilari-tudo, a habit of cheerfulness. 

The etymologies of Hilaritas and Hilaritudo 
mutually illustrate and support each other. To 
suppose that the large class of Latin words ending 
in Tudo were compounded without a perfect know- 
ledge of the meaning of Tiud, the Slavonic (per- 
haps Scythian) root, appears to me, if I may be 
allowed to compare little things with great, very 
much like that hypothesis which ascribes the 
formation of the universe to the fortuitous con- 
course of atoms, — that most insane of all insanities, 
which denies the existence of power, where the 
proofs of its exertion are the most stupendous ; of 
wisdom, where the adaptation of means to ends is 
infinitely various and absolutely perfect ; and of 
goodness, where the liberal provisions for the happi- 
ness of the creature, unequivocally attest the bene- 
volence of the Creator. 

135. It appears to me that etymology, in some 



ON ETYMOLOGY IN GENERAL. 251 

few instances, approximates so nearly to certainty, 
and leaves so little doubt on the mind with respect 
to the origin of certain words, as to be susceptible 
of exerting a rejiex operation^ and of enabling us to 
perceive and correct the anomalies and obscurities 
of the root itself. I will exemplify my meaning 
by the Arabic and Persic word Bal, the significa- 
tions of which, in Eichardson's Dictionary, are as 
follows : — 

Bal (Arabic), the heart, mind, soul ; state, con- 
dition, work; solicitous, anxious. 
Bal (Persic), an arm, a wing, the largest feather 
in the wing, a curling lock ; the 
heart, mind, the body, stature, 
winged, vehement, strong. Part 
of a fillet or wreath, hanging 
from the head-dress by way of 
ornament, love, a kind of pulse or 
pease, plaster for walls. 
I believe few oriental roots have supplied more 
numerous, important, and diversified derivations 
to the European languages, both ancient and 
modern, than this Persic word Bal. I shall detail 
them with some degree of minuteness for the pur- 
pose above stated, and because they also serve to 
illustrate and support my theory, that all verbs, 
and every class of words, as they were primarily 
formed from, are ultimately resolvable into, nouns 
substantive. 

First Root, Bal, the heart. 

Bal (Persic), the heart, mind, soul ; the seat of 
understanding, feeliDg, and will. 



252 on etymology in general. 

Derivatives. 
Boule (Greek), the will, counsel. 
Boulomai, I will. 

Bouleuo and Bouleuomai, I deliberate. 
By reading the B as Y, we have, 
Yolo (Latin), I will. 
Yoluntas (Latin), the will. 
By reading the Y as W, we have, 
Wille, German. 

Will (Enghsh), the will, and I will. 
Second Root, Bal (Persic), the arm. 

Derivatives. 

Bal (Arabic), work, in which the arm is the prin- 
cipal instrument. 

^^^^"^ . I (Greek), I throw, ditto ditto. 
Ballomai J 

Bolos (Greek), a throw. 

Bohs (Greek), a dart, that which is thrown. 

Balios (Greek), one of the horses of Achilles, i. e. 
swift, because that which is thrown moves 
quickly. ( Scapul a ) 

Bala (Sanskrit), strength, which is exerted prin- 
cipally by the arm. 

Third Root, Bal (Persic), a wing. 
Derivatives. 

By reading the B as Y, 

Yolo (Latin), to fly, to speed by hurling or 
throwing. 

Yel-ox (Latin), swift. 

Yel-ocitas (Latin), swiftness. 



ON ETYMOLOGY IN GENEKAL. 253 

Balios (Greek), swift, one of the horses of 
Achilles, so denominated, because his speed 
was more like flying than running. In 
English we have flying Childers, who, though 
not immortal, and only immortalized, ran 
faster, perhaps, than either Xanthus or Ba- 
lius. 

Fourth Eoot, Bal (Persic), the body, stature, 
vehement, strong. 
Deeivatives. 

Bala (Sanskrit), to live. 

Bala (Sanskrit), strength. 

By reading the B as Y, 

Yaleo (Latin), to be well in health, enjoy health, 
to have a good condition of the body. 

Yalidus (Latin), strong. Facciolati says from 
Yaleo, but I prefer the above root Bal, or Yal, 
strong, and the Arabic Hiat, life, living, exist- 
ence, contracted to Id, with the Xatin termi- 
nation us. Yal-id-us, that is, being strong. 

Yaletudo (Latin). Facciolati says habit or state 
of body, health either good or bad, the con- 
titution ; from Yaleo : but the word is clearly 
formed from the above Persic root, Bal, or 
Yal, the body, and the Slavonic Tiud, habit or 
constitution, slightly changed to Tudo. 

By reading the Y as W, we have. 

Well (English), I am well, that is, in good 
health, or in a good state of body. 

136. All will admit the above etymologies to be 
probable ; could we regard them as certain^ I should 



:i 



254 ON ETYMOLOGY IN GENERAL. 

entertain little doubt that the four distinct mean- 
ings of Bal in Persic were derived from four dis- 
tinct roots, and be tempted to write them thus : — 

Jy Boul, the heart ; hence, with final Eta, 
BoyXvj (Greek), the will. 

Jb with Teschdid over the final letter, which 

doubles it, or 
JJb Ball, the arm, hence 

BaXXco j- (Greek), I throw. 

BaXX-o/jiaj 

Jj Bal, a mng, omitting the Alif ; hence BaX/o^ 
(Greek), swift. 
Yolo (Latin), to fly. 
Jb Bal, the body, as we findi g^^^^g^^^^^.^. 
the word in Kichardson, f + ^ i, 
hence J 

Bala (Sanskrit), 

to live. 
Yaleo (Latin), 
to be well, or 
strong. 
And by a change of the diacritical points, which 

will convert B into P, 
J^ Pil, love ; hence, as Derivatives, 

^iT^og (Greek), Amicus. 
4>iX7j (Greek), Amica. 
^I'ksm (Greek), Amo, I love. 



ON THE SOURCES OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 255 



CHAPTER XL 

ON THE SOURCES OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE — ENGLISH 
WORDS — ENGLISH PARTICLES. 

137. Mr. Webster, tlie author of an English dic- 
tionary, in which more attention is devoted to the 
etymology of the language than in any preceding 
publication, expresses himself on the subject in the 
following manner : — " Since the Conquest the En- 
glish has not suffered any shock from the inter- 
mixture of any conquerors with the natives of 
England ; but the language has undergone great 
alterations by the disuse of a large portion of Saxon 
words, and the introduction of words from the 
Latin and Greek languages, with some French, 
Italian, and Spanish words. These words have in 
some instances been borrowed by authors directly 
from the Latin and Greek ; but most of the Latin 
words have been received through the medium of 
the French and Italian. For terms in the sciences 
authors have generally resorted to the Greek, and 
from this source, as discoveries in science demand 
new terms, the vocabulary of the English language 
is receiving continual augmentation. We have also 
a few words from the German and Swedish, mostly 
terms in mineralogy ; and commerce has introduced 
commodities of foreign growth or manufacture, 
with their foreign names, which make a part of our 



256 ON THE SOURCES OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 

language. Such are camphor, amber, arsenic, and 
many others. 

The English language, then, is composed of, 

1st. Saxon and Danish words, of Teutonic and 
Gothic origin. 

2nd. British or Welch, Cornish and Armoric, 
which may be considered as of Celtic origin. 

3rd. Norman, a mixture of French and Gothic. 

4th. Latin, a language formed on the Celtic and 
Teutonic. 

5th. French, chiefly Latin corrupted, but with a 
mixture of Celtic. 

6th. Greek formed on the Celtic and Teutonic, 
with some Coptic. 

7th. A few words directly from the Italian, 
Spanish, German, and other languages of the Con- 
tinent. 

8th. A few foreign words introduced by com- 
merce, or by political or literary intercourse. 

Of these the Saxon words constitute our mother 
tongue, being words which our ancestors brought with 
them from Asia. The Danish and Welch are also 
primitive words, and may be considered as a part 
of our vernacular language. They are of equal 
antiquity with the Chaldee a.nd Syriac." {Intro- 
duction to Dictionary of the English Language^ P- 3.) 

138. Comprehensive as this enumeration appears 
to be, it is still extremely imperfect. In the first 
place Mr. Webster makes no allusion whatever to 
one of the great families or divisions of the European 
languages, the Slavonic, or Ancient Sarmatian, 



ENGLISH WORDS. 257 

though I must do him the justice to say that in 
the body of his work he has derived many Enghsh 
words from it, and I have no doubt very correctly. 
In the next place, the earliest inhabitants of Wales 
and Ireland, if not of England, were the Celtse, and 
they probably came from Spain. What language, 
or languages, did they bring with them ? How 
was Spain peopled ? Pliny, quoting Yarro, says, 
he informs us that the whole of Spain was occu- 
pied by the arrival of the Iberians, the Persians, 
the Phoenicians, the Celtse, and the Carthaginians. 
(Lib. iii. c. 1.) Still we have not named all the 
sources of the English language, as no direct men- 
tion is made of Hindustan, and we meet with nu- 
merous words in our language which may be derived 
with much greater probability from the Sanskrit 
than from any other tongue. Hindustan, indeed, 
may be said to be virtually mentioned, by the Celtae 
being included among the nations which peopled 
Spain, for the Celtaa were Asiatic Scandinavians, or 
Scythians, and Scythia was peopled by the over- 
flowing population of Southern Asia, speaking 
chiefly the Sanskrit, Persic, and Arabic languages, 
or some of their dialects, and impelled in the first 
instance in a northerly and eventually in a westerly 
direction, by the operation of the great law of popu- 
lation, or the pressure of increasing numbers against 
the means of subsistence, the ever-acting principle 
by whose influence, since the beginning of time, 
mankind have been compelled to spread themselves 



258 SOURCES OF THPJ ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 

over the surface of the earth in every latitude and 
in every climate. 

138. When I first paid some attention to the 
Sanskrit I was astonished, as I have no doubt some 
of my readers will be, at meeting with so many 
words agreeing almost letter for letter with our 
mother tongue — a circumstance always desirable 
in etymology, as many of the derivations of English 
words from the Celtic and Anglo-Saxon, which have 
been acquiesced in because no better could be 
found, satisfy neither the eye nor the ear; and 
we shall discover, in a variety of instances, that in 
the exact degree that we ascend to the roots of 
those supposed roots do we approximate to the 
English of our own day. Nor is it difficult to 
account for this circumstance. Language, in its 
progress from rudeness to refinement, has a ten- 
dency, first, to dismiss all gutturals, aspirates, and 
other harsh sounds, which both tax the tongue to 
pronounce them, and offend the ear when pro- 
nounced; and, secondly, to drop all unnecessary 
letters which retard the hand to no purpose in the 
process of writing, and more especially clusters of 
consonants, which offend the eye by association, as 
much as their actual pronounciation does another 
organ. The Sanskrit language had passed through 
this process of purification, and attained perhaps a 
greater degree of polish and a nearer approximation 
to perfection than any other language ever spoken 
on the Asiatic continent. It was carried into Scan- 
dinavia, or Scythia, by emigration, mixed with the 



ENGLISH WOEDS. 259 

Persic, the Arabic, and their innumerable dialects, 
and after the lapse of centuries appeared as the 
language of the Celtae, the earliest inhabitants of 
Europe. No ancient people under the name of 
Celtge ever attained any considerable degree of 
civilization, and it was only at a late period that 
they became acquainted with the art of alphabetical 
writing, which neither the Franks, the Anglo- 
Saxons, nor the Gaels ever practised sufficiently, 
perhaps, to establish general rules of grammar, and 
attain a settled orthography. The process which 
the Sanskrit, the Persic, and the Arabic must have 
passed through at a remote antiquity, has been 
repeated and going on in Europe since the fourth 
century of the Christian era, which witnessed the 
translation of the Maeso-Gothic Gospels, which must 
be regarded, perhaps, as the oldest existing monu- 
ment of any languages actually spoken in Europe, 
if we except the Komaic and Italian as the imme- 
diate representatives of the Greek and Latin. The 
Sanskrit may be regarded as the pure fountain- 
head; the streams which flowed from it remained 
long in a troubled state from the turbulence of the 
middle ages, till, having found a more spacious and 
secure channel, they have gradually deposited the 
dregs of the Prankish, the Anglo-Saxon, the Cim- 
bric, and the Celtic, and reappeared in the beautiful 
languages of Montesquieu and Racine, of Goete and 
Schiller, of Byron and Scott. 

139. I shall now proceed to give a list of such 
Sanskrit words as appear to have found a place in 

s 2 



260 SOURCES OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 

English, with occasional remarks on the etymologies 
proposed by Mr. Webster. 

Sanskrit Words. English. 

Adanta TJn~daunted. 

Sama...,,, Same. 

Ukshan, an ox or bull Oxen, plural. 

XJttara, higher Utter, total. 

Udara, the belly Udder, 

Upala, a precious stone Opal. 

Edha, to grow, or increase Add. 

Mr. Webster says Addo (Latin), from ad, to, and do, give. 
Katha, to speak, or tell Quoth, Old English. 

Mr. Webster says Qythan (Saxon), Gwedyd (Welch), Ceadach 
(Irish). 

Kam, water The Cam, a river. 

Kartra, to unloose, to remove... Quere, charter, that which re- 
moves civil disabilities. 

Kila, white Quere, Chyle, from its colour. 

Kutta, to cut, or divide Cut. 

Kurala, a lock of hair Curl (by contraction.) 

" For ever curst be this detested day. 
Which snatch'd my best, my favourite curl away." 

Rape of the Lock. 

Kindra Centre. 

Kota, a shed, or hut Cot. 

Kharavana, a vehicle Caravan. 

Gata, obtained Grat and Got. 

Gilat, swallowing, eating The gullet. 

Chutta, to become small Cutty, little, Scotch. 

Jangala Jungle. 

Jalpa, to talk much, or idly Yelp, limited in English to the 

noise made by a dog. 

Jirvi, a cart Jarvy, a carriage. (*S'foy^^.) 

Jurni, speed A journey. 

"As one who on his, journey bates at noon, 
Though bent on speed. — Milton."" 

Tapat, heating, or warming Tepid. 

Tasa To toss. 

Di, wasting, destruction Die. 

Dwar Door. 

Dhona, a river The Doon, a river in Scotland. 

Na, a particle of negation ...No. 

Nakta Night. 



1 



ENGLISH WOKDS. 261 

Sanskrit Words. English. 

Nas Nose. 

Nabhi..... Nave (of a wheel). 

No, negative ...No. 

Patapata, to go frequently Pitapat. 

Mr. Webster, without giving any etymology, explains it by 
" a light, quick step," but it is applicable to any quick reiterated 
motion, as, for instance, of the heart. 

Patha, a road Path. 

Pila, aheap Pile, pillow, the pool at quad- 
rille. 

Prita, pleased Pretty (pleasing. ) 

Phala, to divide Fallow land, i.e. ploughed or 

divided. 
Bharu, a husband, a lord ; with Anuswarah, or final N, 
Baron, a lord. — Li Law, Baron and Femme, i. e. husband and 

wife. 

Bhitta Bit. 

Bhruda, to cover Brood (as a hen). 

Bhlasa, to shine Blaze. 

Mina, a fish Minnow. 

Yoga, junction, union Yoke. 

Raga, passion Rage. 

Riti, usage, custom, practice ...Rite. 

Ripa, low, vile Rip. (Slang.) 

Rima, water Rheum. 

Lupa, to cut Lop. 

Lisa, small, little Less, the comparative of little. 

Lola, the tongue To loll the tongue. 

Vama, to vomit Vamati ; he vomits. 

Vaya, to go, or move Way. 

Vasta, to hurt To waste. 

Vahana, any vehicle Wain. 

Vila, or Wila, time While. 

Shwida, to perspire Sweat. 

Sunu Son. 

Supa, broth Soup. 

Stri, to spread over Strew. 

Stima, wetness, moisture Steam. 

Swara, to blame Swear at. 

Hi, to go Hie. 

Hrisha, to go Rush. 

Hladin, happy Grlad, and gladden. 

Hvi, to emulate Vie. 

The above three words are remarkable as retaining the aspi- 
rate letter in Sanskrit, which they have lost in English. 
In the second, indeed, the H is converted into G. 
s 3 



262 SOURCES OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 

Sanskrit Words. English. 

Dasagramapati The head man of ten villages. 

Note. — See the ancient division of England by Alfred into 
Tythings and Hundreds. In Persic, Deh {ten) signifies 
also a village, or ten houses. The Sanskrit is Dasa, ten ; 
Grama, village ; and Pati, lord. He clearly corresponded 
with the Hundreder of our Saxon ancestors. - 

Pula, to collect, to heap The pool at quadrille. 

Madhu, honey Mead, honey wine. 

Varanda, a portico . , Veranda. 

Yama, abreast, a woman With Anuswarah, or final N, 

Woman ; Fsemma, Latin. 

Vida Wet. 

Uksha Ox. 

Rina, move Run. 

Gridha, be greedy Greedy. 

Kshura, cut down Shear. 

Kusa, embrace, unite Kiss. 

Nala, fasten Nail. 

Pundati, he breaks to pieces ...He poundeth. 

Parda, break wind backwards... P and F, and D and T, are 

exchangeable in many lan- 
guages. (See Diversions of 
Purley, vol. ii. p. 67.) 

Bana, beg, request.... Boon. 

Yunati, he fastens He unites or joineth. 

Rayah, speed, velocity... Qwere, Ray of the sun, from its speed. 

Loka, view, see, behold Look. 

Lasha, desire ; Lashati He lusts. 

Liha, taste (with the H hard)... Lick. 

Hikkati He hiccups. 

Kripa, go, move Creep. 

Grasa, eat Graze (like cattle). 

Charvva, eat, chew ; i. e. to divide meat with the teeth. 

Carve, English ; i. e. to divide meat with a knife. 

Jan, to produce Yean (like a sheep). 

Taka, fasten Tack, to fasten. 

] ^andha, bind .Band. 

Bundha Bound. 

Bhila, separate Quere, Bile (English), from its ofiSce of 

separating the nutritious part 
of food. 

Riyati, he moves Rickety, unsteady. 

Laka, taste, relish Like (applied to eating). 

Suna, go, move Qwere, The sun, from its apparent 

motion. 

Svalla, or Swalla, go fast The swallow, or swift ; a bird. 



ENGLISH WORDS. 263 

Sanskrit Words. English. 

Shasta, sleep Siesta, Spanish. 

Draha Throw. 

Mati, he measures He metes. 

Maksha, compound, temper Mi^. 

Arivat, did go Arrived. 

Irm, water The Erme, an English river. 

Kradi, cry, weep Greet, Scotch. 

" It gars me greet." — Burns. 

Granth, arrange,... Quere, Granite, from the regular ar- 
rangement of its component 
parts. 

Grantha, a book Granta, a name of Cambridge. 

(^Gray^s Installation Ode.) 

Gucha, or-Gocha, to be hidden. The Cuckoo, a bird oftener heard 

than seen. 

Ghurn, turn round Churn (butter). 

Truh Tree. 

Duh, milk a cow , Dug, i. e. that which is milked. 

Note. — The root Han in the reduplicated state, changes H 
to Gh. — JVilkin's San. Gram. p. 271. 

Dra, sleep .Drow-sy. 

Drana, asleep Drone, a lazy fellow. 

Nu New. 

Naktam, by night Night-time. 

Naktan Night. 

Pad, go, step ; Root, Pada A foot. 

"Pad the hoof ;" i.e. move the foot. (Slang.) 

Praudah, haughty Proud. 

Badh, blame, reproach Bad, that which deserves re- 
proach. 

Bhras, shine Brass, that which shines. 

Mad, grow mad Mad. 

Masrhati, he arrows mad, or") ^yr 4. i.* • i ^ 
intoxicated 'j Maggoty, whimsical, strange. 

Radh, hurt, kill Raid ( Scotch), a predatory bor- 
der incursion. 

Ru, make a noise Row, a disturbance. ( Slang. ) 

Lag, be in contact Lay, to put. Lay it on the table ; 

i. e. let it be in contact with 
the table. 

Lat^be childish, speak like a U^^^ ^ ^^^^^_ 

Vid, know Wit, and Wot. 

Vli, go Flie, and Flee. 

s 4 



264 SOUKCES OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 

Sanskrit Words. English. 

Ya, blow as the wind ; Vana "I Vane, that which is blown bj 

and Vata J the wind. 

Vij or Wij, separate Wedge, that which separates. 

Vil or Wil, divide Veil, and Wall. 

Vata, an interjection of sor- "| ^, j 

row or regret J 

Ava, from, off Away. 

Shiv, tie, fasten A sheaf of corn ; that which is 

tied, or fastened in a small 

bundle. 

Shtim, be moist, wet, reek Steam. 

Shvid, or Shwid, perspire Sweat. 

Svap Sleep. 

Sphay, grow large, swell Splay. 

Dudru, a ringworm Tetter (by reading d as t). 

Dirgha, long Quere, Dirge, a long lament. 

Dam, a wife Dame. 

Trih, a boat ; Truh, Sanskrit ; Tree, English. The term for 
a boat in Sanskrit appears to describe the substance of 
which it is made. 

Trish, by transposition Thirst. 

Trishati, he thirsts Thirsty. 

Vrit, circulate, be current Qu. Write. 

Vara, a choice thing . . . Quere, Vair, in English romance, to 

which Ellis says he can affix 

no distinct meaning. 

Anyatara, other Another. 

Adhyitun, to go over, read Adyiti, he audits (accounts). 

140. Such appear to have been some of the oldest 
and most remote sources of the English language 
that are accessible to us in the present state of our 
knowledge, and as many of the words are of such 
common and general use, there can be little doubt 
that they are to be found in the Yedas and Insti- 
tutes of Menu ; works which unquestionably possess 
a great antiquity, though I feel no hesitation in re- 
jecting the Mythological Chronology of the Hindus 
as utterly absurd, and untenable for a moment, and 
consequently some of these roots of our language 



ENGLISH WORDS. 265 

are probably as old as the tenth or twelfth century 
before the Christian era, that is, formed a part of 
written compositions at that period ; for the proba- 
bility is, that the simple roots of every language 
are equally old, all being coeval Avith the human 
race. Language appears to be at once the most 
changeable and unchangeable of all human institu- 
tions. In Sanskrit we find the A privative of the 
Greek and Latin, and most modern languages ; and 
it is remarkbale that before a vowel it is changed 
into An (Wilkins^ Sanskrit Grammar , p. 543.), as 
in the following English words of Greek formation : 
Anodyne, from A, not, and Odune, pain, Anonymous, 
from A, without, and Onoma, a name. In Sanskrit 
also, as in English, in some instances, it is not 
merely privative, but reverses the meaning of words, 
and, put before verbs denoting giving, going, carry- 
ing, gives them the sense of taking or receiving, 
coming and bringing (Wilh'ns^ p. 396.), as in 
English, Theist, a believer in God; Atheist, one 
who denies the existence of God. The European 
privative prefix Un is to be found in Sanskrit as a 
verb signifying to deduct, to lessen. In the third 
person of the present tense it forms Unayati, which 
may be the etymology of the Latin Unitas, oneness, 
as unity is produced by diminishing any aggregate 
number until we arrive at the individual ; the ter- 
mination, however, of Latin nouns in itas, as has 
been already remarked, is formed from the Arabic 
Hiat, life, state, condition. The simple roots of a 
very ancient language are of inestimable value, not 



266 SOUKCES OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 

merely to the etymologist, as supplying the deriva- 
tions of which he is in pursuit, but to the philolo- 
gist generally, as suggesting the formation of other 
words. For instance, the root Stu, run, in Sanskrit, 
is suggestive of the Greek Steicho and Stoicheo ; 
and as no letter, line, or point was primarily writ- 
ten in vain, I cannot but suspect, at least, that the 
terminations cho, and cheo, were originally ego; 
Stu-ego, by transposition Stu-geo : and when I 
find in Sanskrit the root Ya, go, and know that in 
that language, and many others, v is exchangeable 
with b, and discover in Greek the word Baino, I go, 
it is with more than probability that I analyse the 
latter word into 
Ba (Sanskrit Dhato, or simple" 

root), go, 
Ano (Syriac personal pronoun), I,_ 

141. Having pointed out the remote sources of 
the English language, I now proceed to notice the 
more proximate, which may be confidently asserted 
to be the Mgeso-Gothic, as found existing in the 
Gospels of Ulphilas ; so well edited by Lye, and 
published at the Clarendon Press, Oxford. I shall 
commence with making a few extracts from and 
remarks on Lye's Gothic Grammar, prefixed to his 
edition of Ulphilas, and giving a list of the most 
remarkable single words I have met with in reading 
the remains of the four Gospels. The sentences 
will be noticed in the next chapter. 

We find in the Maeso-Gothic the article Sa, So, 
Thata, corresponding with the Greek o, t], to. — 



together, Baino, 
I go. 



ENGLISH WORDS. 267 

Thata is clearly the oldest form of the English pro- 
noun That ; the genitive This, of the English This ; 
the plural Thai, of the English They ; and the dative 
and ablative Thaim, of the English Them. 

The noun substantive has three genders, mascu- 
line, feminine, and neuter, and six cases, like the 
Latin, and is thus declined in one of the three forms 
of what Lye regards as the only declination ; — 

SiNGULAE. Plural. 

Nom. Sa Himins, heaven Himinos. 

Gen. Himinis, of heaven Himine. 

Dat. Himina, to heaven Himinam. 

Ac. Himin, heaven Himinans. 

Voc. Himin, heaven Himinos. 

Abl. Himina, in heaven Himinam. 

The noun adjective has three terminations, and 
agrees with the substantive in gender and number. 
The pronouns personal are thus declined : — 

Sestgulak. Dual. Plural. 

Nom. Ik, I. Nom Wit. Nom. Weis. 

Gen. Meina. G. D.and Ab....Ugkis. Gen. Unsara. 

Dat. Mis. Dat. Unsis. 

Ac. Mik Ac Wit. Ac. Uns. 

Ab. Mis. Ab. Unsis. 

The Mseso- Gothic Thu and Theina give the ety- 
mology of the English Thou and Thine. 
The cardinal numbers are — 

Ains One. 

Twai Two. 

Thrija Three. 

Fiduor Four. 

Fimf Five. 

Saihs Six. 

Sibun Seven. 

Ahtau Eight. 

Niun Nine. 

Taihun ..Ten. 

Twalif Twelve. 



268 SOURCES OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 

The present of the verb substantive is Im, Is, and 
1st, resembling both the Greek and Latin, but the 
imperfect is the English Was and Wast. 

In this language we find many of the English 
auxiliary verbs. 

Mag, Possum May, English. 

Mahta, Potui Might, English. 

Wilda, Yolui Would, English. 

Skal, Necesse est Shall, English. 

And the etymology of a host of English words, 
of which some of the closest to the Mgeso-Gothic 
are — 

Andei, finis End. 

Waurda, verba "Word. 

Sunus, filius Son. 

Handus, manus Hand. 

Manna, homo Man. 

Baurgs, civitas Burgess, the inhabitant of an 

English borough. 

Laiseins, doctrina Lesson. 

Daur, ostium Door. 

Alls, omnis, totus All. 

Anthar, alius, secundus Another. 

Maurthreith Murdereth. 

Aftra Again (after). 

Fotubaurd Footstool (foot-board). 

Missadedins Misdeeds. 

Auhn Ofen, German ; Oven, English. 

Saggcha, the West. 

Sancha Dwipa, Africa (Sanskrit). 

Daumb Stumme, German ; Dumb, En- 
glish. 

Lamba Sheep (lambs). 

Bruth, a daughter-in-law. 

Bru, French. 

Dauthai Dead; Todten, German. 

Sumai Some. 

Nate Nets. 

Kann, know Ken, Old English. 

Afar After. 

Frawaurtins, sins Froward, perverse, disobedient. 



ENGLISH WORDS. 269 

Qathar, Utrum Whether. 

Siujith Seweth. 

Juggata Young (Jungata). 

Thairh Through. 

Skuld, lawful Should. 

Thaurfta, need Thrift, parsimony. 

Moda, anger Mood, and moody. 

Ga-sat-ida Sat, and set. 

Uta, without Out. 

Qo, who — The power of this Masso- 

Qui, who (Latin), Gothic letter is not quite cer- 

tain. Home Tooke says hw, 
but it appears to me to be 
sometimes wh. 

Brothrins Brethren, and brothers. 

Dugann Began. 

Skip, Schiff, German Ship, and skiff. 

Fuglos Fowls. 

Tharei Where. 

Goda Good; Gutes, German. 

Undar Under. 

Slepith Sleepeth. 

Gras, herba Grass. 

Gras (Arabic), a plant. 

Kaurnis Corn. 

Skadau Shadow. 

Landa Country (Land). 

Suns Soon, straightway. 

Ga-motida Met. 

Ufta Oft, often. 

Ga-brak Brake, and broke. 

Rann Ran . 

Wods, mad Wode. {Spenser.) 

Yera Years. 

Maht, power Might, noun substantive. 

auxiliary verb. 

Timria, Architectus A carpenter, a worker in wood. 

Timbrian, Domos sedificare. 

JVote. — The houses of the Anglo-Saxons were built almost 
entirely of timber, or wood. 

Dauthaim The dead. 

Af-maimait Maimed. 

Si _ She. 

Apaustalies Apostles. 

Manag Many. 

Faurthis First. 

Hundos, dogs Hounds. 



270 SOURCES OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 

Tuggon Tongue; Zunge, German. 

Taikn, a sign Token. 

Thahtedun They thought. 

Faurbath He forbad. 

Usstandan, resurgere Stand again. 

Taujeth Doeth. 

Faur For. 

Leitilane Little ones. 

Kairnus, stone Cairn, aheap of stones. 

Than.. Than. 

Saltada Shall be salted. 

Hiri, come Here! (calling a person). 

Nu Now. 

Driggka I drink. 

Sat Sat ; Sass, German. 

Us hlaupands, up leaping Loup, Scotch; Leap, English. 

Kam at Came to. 

Gredags, Gredays Greedy, hungry. 

Habandan lauf \j ^ 

Habentem folia J 

Laushandjan 1 Loose handed ; that is, empty- 

Manibus vacuum J handed, from the hands not 

being closed. 

Manleika Image. 

Frodaba, sapienter Fraud, cunning, 

Silba Self. 

Ga-skop Goth, Creavit Deus ...Shape, landscape. 

Lauhath Light. 

Kukida Kissed. 

Nakaths Naked. 

Hana A cock (hen). 

Hlauta Lots. 

Ba Both ; Bis (Latin), twice. 

Latededi, tardaret To let, i, e. to hinder, to delay, 

Hairdai Flock (herd). 

Siggwan, to read Sing. 

Aumisto, top i. e. Auh, high. 

Misto, most. 

Sagk Sank, English. 

Hwathar, or whathar Whether ; Welches, German. 

Baioths Both. 

Yugg Young. 

Hatandans Hating. 

Widowo Widow. 

Vedova, Italian. 

Vidua, Latin. 

Gasok, he rebuked Quere, Gadzooks ! an exclamation. 



ENGLISH WORDS. 271 

Wis, tranquillitas.... Whist, Whish, or Hush, be si- 
lent. 

Mat, cibum Meat. 

Thar, Ibi There. 

Sundro, seorsim Asunder. 

Skeinandei Shining. 

Faurhtidedun They feared. 

Ga-brikands Breaking. , 

Waurme Serpents. 

"Worm, a serpent." (Shakspeare.) 
Nahtamat, supper i. e. Nahta, night. 

Mat, meat. 

Rahneith Reckoneth. 

Taihuntehund, a hundred Literally, ten tens. 

Niuntehund, ninety „ nine tens. 

Figgragulth, annulum aureum... „ finger gold. 

Stiur Calf (steer). 

Ga wrikith, vindicabit Wreak, to revenge. 

Qa, hwa, or wha Why. 

Kaupeth Keep. 

Veinayard Vineyard ; Weinberg, German. 

Hawe Hay. 

Rickis, tenebrae Reek, smoke. 

Huggreith Shall hunger. 

Managai, Manayai Many. 

Taujis Doest. 

Taujith Doeth. 

Ga tairaidan Teared, and torn. 

Ga faifaheina They might take. 

Enfeoffed, possessed of, English. 

Hliftus, a thief To lift, Scotch. {Waverley 

Novels.') 

Shop-lifter, English. 

Note. — This word is remarkable as illustrating the tendency 
of languages in their progress from rudeness to refinement, 
to dismiss aspirates. 

Phliuhith Fleeth, Fleihet, German. 

Faeino, I am glad Fain. 

Fund Pound; Pfund, German. 

Weinatriu, vine Literally, wine-tree. 

Aurtigards; Hortus, Latin But this word appears to com- 
bine the first syllables of 
Hort-us, and Gard-en. 

Wipnam, Armis With weapons. 



272 SOURCES OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 

English Particles. 

142. In every grammatical treatise that has 
hitherto seen the light, the authors have been very- 
much embarrassed how to dispose of a numerous 
class of words denominated collectively particles. 
It is difficult to conceive of more extreme injustice 
than has been inflicted on this large family of httle 
people. Some have denied that they were words 
altogether ; others have insisted that they had no 
ideas annexed to them, which amounts to very 
nearly the same thing ; while some again, like the 
author of Hermes, have admitted that they had an 
obscure kind of signification. While their treat- 
ment has been more harsh than that of the Spartan 
Helots, we cannot sympathize with them as Parias, 
or outcasts, for many of them have been so unfor- 
tunate as never to have had a caste to lose, and no 
one has ever condescended to determine whether 
they were conjunctions, prepositions, or adverbs. 
Home Tooke, on the whole, is perhaps the best 
friend they ever met with ; but while he rescued a 
select few from their degraded state, he left the 
great mass very much as he found them, and aban- 
doned them to a condition which has ever since 
been regarded as hopeless. 

143. Mr. Locke, in his Essay on Human Under- 
standing, while he obviously felt the necessity of 
doing something, does not appear to have seen very 
clearly in what direction his efforts might be ex- 
erted to the best advantage. In his short chapter 



ENGLISH PAETICLES. 273 

on Particles, he says, " This part of grammar has 
been perhaps as much neglected as some others 
over diligently cultivated. 'Tis easy for men to 
write, one after another, of cases and genders, 
moods and tenses, gerunds and supines : in these 
and the like, there has been great diligence used ; 
and particles themselves have been in some lan- 
guages ranked in their several orders with great 
show of exactness. But though prepositions, con- 
junctions, &:c. are names well known in grammar, 
and the particles contained under them carefully 
ranked into their distinct subdivisions ; yet he who 
would show the right use of particles, and what 
significancy and force they have, must take a little 
more pains, enter into his own thoughts, and ob- 
serve nicely the several postures of his mind in 
discoursing." Thus far Mr. Locke ; but I think we 
shall find that in every instance in which we can 
discover the true etymology of the English and all 
other particles, all the obscurity which at present 
attaches to them will disappear, and we shall be 
convinced that as the greater part of them were 
originally nouns substantive, so, in every situation, 
they retain their substantive character and signi- 
fication. 

Enough. 

144. Home Tooke says, in Dutch, Genoeg, from 
the verb Genoegan, to content, to satisfy. S. John- 
son cannot determine whether this word is a 
substantive, an adjective, or an adverb, but he 

T 



274 EITGLISH PARTICLES. 

thinks it all three. " It is not easy," he says, " to 
determine whether this word be an adjective or 
adverb ; perhaps, when it is joined to a substantive, 
it is an adjective, of which Enow is the plural. In 
other situations it seems to be an adverb, except 
that after the verb to have, or to be, either ex- 
pressed or understood, it may be accounted a sub- 
stantive." According to him, it means — 

1. In a sufficient measure, so as to satisfy, so as 

may suffice. 

2. Something sufficient in greatness, or excel- 

lence. 

3. Something to a man's power, or abihties. 

4. In a sufficient degree. 

5. It notes a slight augmentation in the positive 

degree. 

6. Sometimes it denotes diminution. 

7. An exclamation noting fulness, or satiety. 
Tooke himself says, in the Anglo-Saxon it is 

Genog, or Genoh, and appears to be the past parti- 
ciple Genoged, multiplication, manifold, of the verb 
Genogan, multiplicare. 

Mr. Webster says, Enough, adj. Enuf. Sax. 
Genog, Genoh ; Goth. Ganah ; Ger. Genug, Gnug ; 
D. Genoeg; Swed. Nog; Dan. Nok; Sax. Genogan, 
to multiply ; Ger. Genugen, to satisfy ; D. Genoegan, 
to satisfy, please, content. The Swedes and Danes 
drop the prefix, as the Danes do in logger, to 
gnaw. The word may be the Heb., Ch., Syr., and 
Eth. ni^ to rest, to be quiet, or satisfy. (Class 
Ng. No. 14.) That satisfies desire, or gives con- 



ENGLISH PARTICLES. 275 

tent ; that may answer the purpose ; that is ade- 
quate to the wants. 

" She said, We have straw and provender enough^ 
(Gen. xxiv.) 

" How many hired servants of my father have 
bread enough^ and to spare ! " (Luke, xv.) 

JSfote. — This word in vulgar language is some- 
times placed before its noun, like most other adjec- 
tives. But in elegant discourse, or composition, it 
always follows the noun to which it refers ; as, 
bread enough, money enough. 

Enough, noun, Enuf; a sufficiency; a quantity 
of a thing which satisfies desire, or is adequate to 
the wants. " We have enough of this sort of cloth." 
" And Esau said, I have enough^ my brother." (Gen. 
xxxiii. ) 

" Israel said. It is enough ; Joseph is yet alive.'' 
(Gen. xlv.) 

2. That which is equal to the powers or abilities. 
" He had enough to do to take care of him- 
self." 

Enough, adv. enuf, sufficiently ; in a quantity or 
degree that satisfies, or is equal to the desires and 
wants. " The land, behold, it is large enough for 
them." (Gen. xxxiv.) " Ye have dwelt long enough 
in this mount." (Deut. i.) 

2. Fully, quite; denoting a slight augmentation 
of the positive degree. " He is ready enough 
to embrace the offer." " It is pleasant enough 
to consider the different notions of different 
men respecting the same thing." 

T 2 



276 ENGLISH PARTICLES. 

3. Sometimes it denotes diminution, delicately 

expressing ratlier less than is desired, such 
a quantity as commands acquiescence rather 
than full satisfaction. " The song, or the 
performance, is well enough.'''' 

4. An exclamation denoting sufS.ciency : ^'' Enough^ 

enough ; I'll hear no more." 

Proposed. 

Henoufi, abundantia, abundance ; a noun mas- 
cuhne, Coptic. {La Croze,^ 

This word is remarkable on several accounts: 
first, as exemplifying the general tendency of all 
languages, in their progress from rudeness to 
refinement, to drop aspirates, as it is written in 
Egyptian with the letter Hori, or proper H ; and 
secondly, by affording us a most important lesson 
in Orthoepy ; for, as the final syllable is written with 
the letter Phei, to which La Croze assigns the 
power of F, we immediately discover the reason 
why the English derivative word, though written 
Enough, is pronounced Enuf, the orthography being- 
vitiated, while we have retained the true Egyptian 
pronunciation. It has frequently been asked, why 
should Enough be pronounced Enuf, while we pro- 
nounce Plough, Plow ; and we can now, for the 
first time, return the satisfactory answer, — because 
it was so written and pronounced in the original lan- 
guage from which it is derived. With respect to 
the meaning of the word, I think my readers will 
agree with me in being of opinion that all the 



ENGLISH rARTICLES. 277 

senses attributed to it by Johnson, Tooke, and 
Webster, are at once clearly accounted for, and 
that all those senses are as clearly resolvable into 
one which never varies; and I believe I might 
venture to add, that such will always be the case, 
let us apply it to as many passages as we will. 
We will select a couple from Shakspeare at random 
as an experiment. In the single combat between 
Macduff and Macbeth, the latter exclaims, " Lay 
on, Macduff; and damn'd be he that first cries. Hold, 
enough I " and in Eomeo and Juliet, when Mercutio 
receives his mortal wound, in reply to Romeo's 
observation, " The hurt cannot be much," he replies, 
" No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a 
church door; but 'tis enough.^'' Does not the Egyp- 
tian noun substantive, in both these instances, 
completely explain the meaning of enough, and 
might it not be substituted for them ? I believe 
so, both in these, and all other cases. 

Away. 

145. Of this word Home Tooke does not give 
any explanation; but Mr. Webster says, — 

Away, Adv. (Saxon), Aweg, a, and way ; also 
Onweg, away, and awegan, to avert. 

1. Absent, at a distance ; as, " The master is away 

from home." " Have me away, for I am 
wounded." (2 Chron. xxxv.) 

2. It is much used mth words signifying moving 

or going from ; as, go away, send away, run 
away, &c.; all signifying departure or sepa- 

T 3 



278 ENGLISH PARTICLES. 

ration to a distance. Sometimes without the 
verb; as, "'^'Tiither away so fast?" (Shaksp.) 
" Love hath wings, and will away." ( Waller. ) 

3. As an exclamation, it is a command or invi- 

tation to depart : " Away ! " that is, begone, 
or let us go. " Away with him," " Take 
him away." 

4. With verbs, it serves to modify their sense, 

and form peculiar phrases; as, to throw away, 
to cast from, to give up, dissipate, or fool- 
ishly destroy. To trifle away, to lose, or 
expend in trifles or in idleness. To drink 
away, to s wander away, &c. ; to dissipate in 
drinking or extravagance. To make away, 
is to kill or destroy. 

5. "Away with" has a pecuhar signification in 

the phrase, " I cannot away with it," (Isa. i.) 
The sense is, " I cannot bear, or endure it." 

Proposed. 

Ouei, distantia, longitudo. A noun masculine, 
Coptic. (La Croze.) 

Item, longe fugere, abesse, distare. A verb, 
Coptic. (La Croze.) 

I think this Egyptian word, or rather words, 
will clearly explain all the meanings of aw ay exhi- 
bited by Mr. Webster in the above examples. In 
the passage he has quoted from Shakspeare, " Whi- 
ther away so fast ? " if my readers believe the pro- 
posed etymology, I trust they will not be of opinion 
that away is used without the verb, as it is itself a 
perfectly regular and legitimate verb, not only in 



ENGLISH PARTICLES. 279 

Coptic, but in English. Let us apply our etymo- 
logy to a couple more passages taken promis- 
cuously from Shakspeare, and see how they will 
bear it. In the Merry Wives of Windsor, Fal- 
staff says, 

"Rogues, hence! avaunt ! vanish like hailstones, go! 
Trudge, plot away, o' the hoof, seek shelter, pack I " 

For away, we might substitute to a distance^ as 
well as in the following line from the First Part of 
King Henry the Fourth: "We must away all 
night." 

Away, as an exclamation, appears to have been 
borrowed by us directly from the Sanskrit Ava, 
from, off, down, from. As a verb in Sanskrit, one 
of its senses is, to move ; and it suggests analogies 
both mth the Greek Ba, the imperative of Baino, 
and the French Va, the imperative of Aller. 

Now, 

146. With respect to this word also. Home 
Tooke is silent, but Mr. Webster gives a long- 
account of it. He says, 

Now, adv. Sax. Nu. ; D. Sw. Dan. and Goth. 
Nu. The G. has Nun, Gr. Nun, Lat. Nunc. 

1. At the present time. " I have a patient now 

living at an advanced age, who discharged 
blood from his lungs thirty years ago." 
(^Arhuthnot.) 

2. A little while ago, very lately. 

'' They that but now, for honour and for plate, 
Made the sea blush with blood, resign their hate." 

Waller. 
T 4 



280 EJ^GLISH PARTICLES. 

3. At one time, at another time, 

^^ Now high, 7101V low, now master up, now miss." — Pope. 

4. JSTow sometimes expresses or implies a con- 

nexion between the subsequent and pre- 
ceding proposition; often it introduces an 
inference or an explanation of what pre- 
cedes. 

" Not this man, but Barabbas : now Barabbas 
was a robber." (John xviii.) 

" Then said Micah, Now I know that the Lord 
will do me good, seeing I have a Levite for 
my priest." (Judges xvii.) 

" The other great mischief which befals men is 
by their being misrepresented. Noiu^ by 
calhng evil good, a man is misrepresented 
to others in the way of slander." (South.) 

5. After this; things being so. "How shall any 

man now distinguish betwixt a parasite and 
a man of honour ? " (L' Estrange.) 

6. In supplication, it appears to be somewhat 

emphatical. " I beseech thee, Lord, re- 
member now how I have walked before 
thee in truth and with a perfect heart." 
(2 Kings, XX.) 

7. Now sometimes refers to a particular time 

past, specified or understood, and may be 
defined at that time. " He was 7iow sensible 
of his mistake." 
Now and then^ at one time and another, inde- 
finitely, occasionally, not often, at intervals. 



ENGLISH PARTICLES. 281 

1. " They now and tlien appear in offices of re- 

ligion." {Rogers.) 
" If there were any such thing as spontaneous 
generation, a new species would now and then 
appear." 

2. Applied to places which appear at intervals, 

or in succession. 
" A mead here, there a heath, and now and then 

a wood." {Drayton.) 
Now, noiVj repeated, is used to excite attention to 
something immediately to happen. 
Now (a noun), the present time, or moment. 

" Nothing is there to come, and nothing past; 
But an eternal now does ever last." — Cowley. 

Now-a-days, adv. in this age. 

" What men of spirit, now-a-days, 
Come to give sober judgment of new plays?" — Garrick. 

This is a common colloquial phrase, but not ele- 
gant in writing, unless of the more familiar 
kinds. 

Thus far Mr. Webster. 

Proposed. 

Nei {tempus assignatum et definitum), a noun, 

Coptic. {La Croze.) 
Nau, hora (the present time), a noun, Coptic. 

{La Croze.) 
Nau, quasi, in rebus quse numerantur, Coptic* 

{La Croze.) 



282 ENGLISH PARTICLES. 

Nu, or Null (Sanskrit), time in general. 
Nu (Maeso- Gothic and Anglo-Saxon), now. 
Now (English), an adverb of time. 

Probably this word came to us immediately from 
the Maeso-Goths, and to them from one of the two 
older languages. The Greek Nun, now, is the 
Sanskrit Nu, with Anuswarah, or final N ; and if we 
could suppose that Anuswarah (a simple dot) had 
ever been used as a medial in Sanskrit, and written 
over the line, we might easily deduce from the 
Sanskrit form Nuh, the Latin Nune, by interposing 
Anuswarah between u and h, and reading the h 
hard, Nunch, by contraction Nunc. 

In the fifth act of Shakspeare's King John we 
read, immediately after his death, " But noiv a king, 
now thus ;" and again, " When this was now a king, 
and now is clay." In these two lines the first now 
exhibits the meaning of the Sanskrit Nu, the second 
of the Egyptian Nau. Paraphrase : — At an indefi- 
nite time past he was a king, at the present hour, the 
actual moment, he is a corpse. In the first speech 
of Coriolanus addressed to the citizens, he says, — 

" Hang ye ! Trust ye ? 
With every minute you do change a mind, 
And call him noble that was now your hate." 

Here again the now has the Sanskrit, and not the 
Egyptian meaning, being used to express an in- 
definite time past, in contradistinction to the actual 
moment. 



ENGLISH PARTICLES. 283 

While. 

147. Home Tooke says, in the Anglo-Saxon, 
Hwile, for Hwiol, is the same past participle (of the 
verb Willigan, to roll), and we say indifferently 
" Walk a while," or " Take a turn ;" which might 
have done very well if his object had been to ascer- 
tain the meaning of walk, and not the etymology of 
while, which I believe has little to do with taking 
a turn either in a right line or a circular one. 
Mr. Webster's account of the word is on the whole 
extremely good; and the only objection to it is, that, 
as he has not discovered the true root, he does not 
begin at the beginning. He says, 

While, n. (Sax. hwile; Goth, hweila; Ger. well; 

D. ^vyl ; time, while ; Dan. hvile ; Sw. hvila, 

repose; W. cwyl, a turn; Ir. foil). See the 

verb. 

Time, space of time, or continued duration. " He 

was some while in the country." " One lohile we 

thought him innocent." 

"Pausing a lohile, thus to herself she said." — Milton. 

Worth while., worth the time which it requires ; 
worth the time and pains ; hence, worth the ex- 
pense. " It is not always loorth ivhile for a man to 
prosecute for small debts" (certainly very seldom in 
England, whatever may be the case in America). 
While, adv., during the time that. " While I write, 
you sleep." 

2. As long as. " Use your memory, and you 
will sensibly experience a gradual improve- 



284 ENGLISH PARTICLES. 

ment, while you take care not to overload 

it." _ Watts. 
3. At the same time that. — - Pope. 
While. V. t. (W. cwylan, to turn, to run a course, 
to bustle; Ethi. CDDrS waala, to pass the time, to 
spend the day, or life, to remain ; Amharic, Id. ; 
Dan. hviler; Sw. hvila, to rest, or repose ; Ir. foillim, 
to stay, to rest, to tarry ; Ger. weilen, verweilen, to 
abide, to stay; D. verwylen. Id. (Mr. Webster 
concludes with — Qaere the identity of these words ? 
a doubt, perhaps, not altogether unnecessary.) 
To while away^ as time, in English, is to loiter ; or, 
more generally, to cause time to pass away plea- 
santly, without irksomeness, as we while away time 
in amusements or diversions. " Let us while away 
this hfe." — Pope. 
While. V. i., to loiter. — Spectator. 

Peoposed. 

Wila, time, a noun, Persic. {Richardson.) 
Wila, or Vila, time, Sanskrit. {Wilson.) 
Waal, diem transigit, Ethiopic. {Ludolph.) 
Weil, time, a noun, German. 
Wyl „ „ Dutch. 

While „ „ English. 

While „ a verb. 
While ,, an adverb. 

In our own language, I believe while always sig- 
nifies time, either hterally, or with some slight mo- 
difications of meaning. We probably borrowed the 
word from the Mseso-Gothic Hweila ; but those who 



ENGLISH PARTICLES. 285 

recollect the strong assertions of Grotius and Leib- 
nitz, to which I have already alluded, as to the 
large number of words in the German language 
proceeding directly from the Persic, will entertain 
little doubt that the Weil of the former is the Wila 
of the latter. 

In Twelfth Night, Olivia, speaking of her in- 
tended hasty marriage with Sebastian, says of the 
priest, — 

" He shall conceal it, — 
Whiles you are willing it shall come to note." 

That is, it shall be kept secret in the first instance, 
and at the time you are disposed to publish it, it shall 
be divulged. In the instance from Home Tooke, 
" Walk a ivhile^^^ is evidently " Walk a time ;^^ and 
in the colloquial phrase, as Johnson would term it, 
if it is not worth my while, we clearly intend to 
say that the object in question is so trifling as not 
to be worth the sacrifice of time it would require. 



286 GENIUS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



CHAPTER XII. 

GENIUS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. ITS CLOSE ANA- 
LOGY AVITH THE PERSIC — STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH 
SENTENCES. M^SO-GOTHIC SENTENCES. — ANGLO- 
SAXON SENTENCES. THE ENGLISH THE ELDEST 

DAUGHTER OF THE IVl^SO-GOTHIC. 

148. The Greek philosophers, in their speculations 
on Chronology, fancied that they had discovered 
the existence of a period of time of prodigiously 
long duration, to which they gave the name of the 
Great Year, which some conceived to be measured 
by the revolution of the fixed stars, and some by 
the precession of the Equinoxes, the returns of 
which brought back precisely the same settled and 
invariable order of the seasons; and amidst the 
endless variety of Nature we witness the same ten- 
dency to repetition in many of her operations. 
Whoever has observed the contents of a long gal- 
lery of family portraits may have remarked that, 
independently of the general resemblance which ob- 
tains among them, the very identical features of the 
founder of the race appear in some instances to be 
restored in the person of a remote descendant, at 
the distance of many generations, or, if the collection 
be a large one, perhaps centuries. Something of 
the same sort may be noticed of the nations and 
languages of Asia and Europe. As the latter con- 



ENGLISH SENTENCES. 287 

tinent was peopled from the former, we naturally 
expect to find many features in common : but we 
discover much more ; for the manners of the ancient 
Persians, as described by Herodotus, and those of 
the ancient Germans, as portrayed by Tacitus, are 
so much ahke that the same individual would 
appear to have sitten for both pictures, and the 
language of the Persians, from the extreme sim- 
plicity of its structure, and its philosophical charac- 
ter, seems to stand in the same relation to the 
languages of ancient Asia as the EngUsh does to 
those of modern Europe. 

149. Herodotus, describing the Persians, says, 
" Among all their festivals each individual pays 
particular regard to his birth-day, when they in- 
dulge themselves with better fare than usual. The 
more rich among them prepare on this day an ox, 
a horse, a camel, or an ass, which is roasted whole ; 
the poorer sort are satisfied with a lamb, or a sheep : 
they eat but sparingly of meat, but are fond of the 
after dishes, which are separately introduced. From 
hence the Persians take occasion to say that the 
Grecians do not leave their tables satisfied, having 
nothing good to induce them to continue there : 
if they had, they would eat more. Of wine 
they drink profusely ; but they may not vomit 
before any one : which customs they stiU observe. 
They are accustomed to deliberate on matters of 
the highest moment when warm with wine ; but 
whatever they in this situation may determine is 
again proposed to them on the morrow, in their 



288 ENGLISH SENTENCES. 

cooler moments, by the person in whose house they 
had before assembled. If at this time also it meet 
their approbation, it is executed; otherwise it is 
rejected. Whatever also they discuss when sober is 
always a second time examined after they have been 
drinking." {Beloe's Herodotus^ book i. c. 133.) 

150. Tacitus, in his Manners of the Germans, 
writes, — "Having finished their repast, they pro- 
ceed, completely armed, to the despatch of business, 
and frequently to a convivial meeting. To devote 
both night and day to deep drinking is a disgrace 
to no man. Disputes, as will be the case with 
people in liquor, frequently arise, and are seldom 
confined to opprobrious language. The quarrel 
generally ends in a scene of blood. Important 
subjects, such as the reconciliation of enemies, th^. 
forming of family alliances, the election of chiefs, 
and even of peace and war, are generally canvassed 
in their carousing festivals. The convivial mo- 
ment, according to their notion, is the true season 
for business, when the mind opens itself in plain 
simplicity, or grows warm with bold and noble 
ideas. Strangers to artifice, and knowing no re- 
finement, they tell their sentiments without dis- 
guise. The pleasure of the table expands their 
hearts, and calls forth every secret. On the fol- 
lowing day the subject of debate is again taken 
into consideration, and thus two different periods 
of time have their distinct uses : when warm they 
debate ; when cool they decide." {Murphy's Tacitus, 
c. 22.) 



ENGLISH SENTENCES. 289 

151. In his Grammar of the Persian Language, 
forming the fifth volume of his Works, Sir William 
Jones observes, the reader will soon perceive with 
pleasure a great resemblance between the Persian 
and English languages in the facility and simplicity 
of their form and construction, the former as well 
as the latter having no difference of termination to 
mark the gender, either in substantives or adjectives, 
all inanimate things being neuter, and animals of 
different sexes either having different names, as 
Puser, a boy, Keneez, a girl, or being distinguished 
by the words Ner, male, and Made, female ; as, 
Sheeri JS^er, a lion, Sheeri Made, a lioness. It must 
be remarked, however, that a word is sometimes 
made feminine, after the manner of the Arabians, 
by adding the letter Ha (h) to it, as Mashuk, a 
friend, amicus ; Mashukah, a mistress, amica. 

152. The Persic substantives, like ours, have but 
one variation of case, which is formed by adding 
the syllable Ra to the nominative in both numbers, 
and answers often to the dative, but generally to 
the accusative case in other languages ; as, 

Nominative, Puser, a child. 

Dative and Ace, Puserra, to a child, or the child. 

To the inquirer into the origin and formation of 
the English language it will not be a matter of in- 
difference to learn that we discover some traces of 
this Persic syllable Ra both in Anglo-Saxon and 
Old English; and the classical scholar will be 
tempted to form conjectures how far it accounts for 
the Doric and ^olic R, redundant. Tyrwhitt, in 

U 



290 ENGLISH SENTENCES. 

his Essay on the Language and Yersification of 
Chaucer, says, " Other," alius, had a genitive case 
singular, and a plural number, Otheres ; and Aller 
(a corruption of Ealra) was still in use as the 
genitive plural of AUe. 

When the accusative is used indefinitely, the 
syllable Ea is omitted ; as, Gul chiden, to gather a 
flower, i, e. any flower ; but when the noun is 
defined, or limited, that syllable is added to it ; as, 
Gulra chid, he gathered the flower, /. e. the par- 
ticular flower. There is no genitive case in Per- 
sian, but when two substantives of difierent mean- 
ings come together, a Kesra, or short E, is added, 
in reading, to the former of them, and the latter 
remains unaltered ; as, Mushk Khoten, the musk 
of Tartary, which must be read Mushke Khoten. 
The same rule must be observed before a pronoun 
possessive ; as, Pusere men, my child ; and before an 
adjective; as, Shemshire tubnak, a bright scymitar. 

153. Our article a is supplied in Persian by 
adding the letter i to a noun, which restrains it to 
the singular number ; as, Guh, a single rose. The 
plural of nouns is formed by adding An or 
Ha to the singular ; but these terminations are 
not, as in many languages, altogether arbitrary ; on 
the contrary, they are regulated with the utmost 
precision. The names of animals form their plural 
in An ; and here we find at least one striking and 
close analogy in our own language ; as. Ox, oxen. 
En, says Mr. Webster in his excellent Dictionary, 
was formerly a plural termination of nouns and 



ENGLISH SENTENCES. 291 

verbs, as in housen, escapen. It is retained in 
oxen and children. (In voce " En.") As the sin- 
gular of children is child, we may observe a trace of 
the Persic Ea, as weU as the plural An or En. In 
Persic, words which signify things without hfe 
form their plurals by the addition of the syllable 
Ha ; as, Bal, a wing, Balha, wings, a word which, as 
I have remarked in another place, appears to be the 
root of the Greek word Balios, swift; and the 
Latin, Yolo, Yolare, to fly. 

154. The Persian adjective admits of no variation, 
except as to the degrees of comparison. The posi- 
tive is made comparative by adding to it Ter, and 
superlative by adding Terin ; as, Khub, fair, Khub- 
ter, fairer, Khubterin, fairest. We discover the 
Persic comparative Ter in the Greek comparative 
Ter-os, the final os being added by them to all the 
proper names, and many of the common words, 
which they borrowed from the Asiatics. Ter in 
Coptic signifies all, and as a simple augmentive 
perhaps accounts both for the Persic Ter, and the 
Greek Teros. 

155. The Persians have active and neuter verbs 
like other nations, but many of their verbs have 
both an active and neuter sense, which can be 
determined only by the construction. Their verbs 
have properly but one conjugation, and but three 
changes of tense, the imperative, the aorist, and the 
preterite, all the other tenses being formed by the 
help of the particles Mi and Hemi, or of the auxi- 
liary verbs Hastan or Boudan, to be, and Khastan, 

u 2 



292 ENGLISH SENTENCES. 

to be willing. The passive voice is formed by add- 
ing the tenses of the verb-substantive Shadan to 
the participle preterite of the active Khandah 
Shad, it was read, &c. 

156. If an intelligent Englishman were required 
to make a selection, in a broad and general way, of 
the most striking peculiarities of the English lan- 
guage for the information of a foreigner, as com- 
pared with the Greek or Latin, the Italian or 
Spanish, the French or German, he would perhaps 
commence by teUing him that all the noun-sub- 
stantives in the language describing things without 
life possess no gender ; the immediate consequence 
of which is, that adjectives never vary their termi- 
nation to denote their agreement with a substantive 
masculine, feminine, or neuter ; and the remote, that 
in the construction of a sentence the adjective can 
never be separated from its substantive, as their 
relation to each other can be discovered only from 
their juxtaposition He would next, perhaps, in rm 
him that the noun never varies its termination to 
express the different cases of the Greek and Latin, 
the whole of which are denoted by particles. He 
would go on to tell him that as substantives have 
no declension, verbs can hardly be said to have a 
conjugation in the sense in which the words were 
used by the Greeks and Komans, the verb having 
but two distinct forms in the present and past 
tenses, all the others being formed from the differ- 
ent tenses of the verbs to be, and to have, and the 
a-uxiliary signs may, can, might, would, could, and 



ENGLISH SENTENCES. 293 

should. He would add, that there is no single word 
in English capable of expressing the passive voice 
as in Latin, Amor, from Amo, and that it can be 
attained only by the aid of the verb-substantive 
to be, I am loved. He would perhaps conclude 
with saying that, in a vast majority of instances, 
the singular of nouns differs from the plural simply 
by the addition of an S to the latter; and that 
the adjective is not affected at all by the change of 
number, as we say a good man, or good men, a 
swift horse, or swift horses, a magnificent house, or 
magnificent houses; and that neither nouns nor 
verbs exhibit any trace of a dual number having 
ever existed. If these are some of the leading 
characteristics of the English language, which, I 
think, will hardly be denied, the remarkable cir- 
cumstance is, that they are almost all equally appli- 
cable to the Persic, as the reader will perceive from 
the short sketch of Persian Grammar that has been 
given, and to no other language, ancient or modern, 
that I am acquainted with. 

157. The Gender of Nouns is, perhaps, one of 
the greatest sources of embarrassment to an En- 
ghshmen in writing an ancient, and still more so 
in speaking a modern language, and is no doubt 
one of the principal causes that, though the greatest 
travellers. Englishmen are probably the very worst 
linguists in Europe, acquiring other tongues with 
greater difiiculty, and speaking them at last more 
imperfectly, than the natives of any other country. 
To us the gender of nouns cannot appear in any 

u 3 



294 ENGLISH SENTENCEa. 

other light than a singular anomaly and deviation 
from the order of nature, which would seem to 
require that the distinction of gender should be 
co-extensive with that of sex, and that the former 
should cease to be observed where the latter is not 
obviously established. In this respect the Persic 
and English languages appear to me to have pro- 
ceeded on the most rational principles, in both of 
which all inanimate things are neuter, and also the 
greater part of animals of different sexes have 
different names, and are not discriminated by 
varying the masculine of a noun, which serves to 
denote both. Philosophically speaking, where there 
is no difference of sex, there ought to be no distinc- 
tion of gender ; but when the genius and esta- 
blished character of a language have conferred a 
gender on every word in that language, its exten- 
sion from things animate to inanimate seems in 
some cases to have proceeded on some fanciful and 
far-fetched analogy, in some to have had reference 
to the termination of words solely, and in some to 
have been purely arbitrary, or at any rate to have 
proceeded on principles which it is now impossible 
to trace, and been influenced by causes which we 
cannot hope to discover. For instance, in Greek 
and Latin, the Moon is feminine; while in Hebrew 
and Sanskrit the masculine gender is assigned to 
that planet. In Hebrew the Earth is of the com- 
mon gender, while in Greek and Latin she is 
feminine. But the Romans had a god Lunus as 
well as a goddess Luna ; and the Greeks described 



I 



ENGLISH SENTENCES. 295 

the full moon by the term Panselenos, which was 
masculine, though Selene, the Moon, is feminine, 
and the adjective Pan neuter. The Eomans also 
described the Earth by the word Tellus, which was 
of the feminine gender, like Terra, though the ter- 
mination was masculine ; and Tellus ought to have 
been a god as well as Lunus. 

158. If we could regard Language as an inven- 
tion purely human, and if we could suppose that 
languages were altogether formed, as they have 
undeniably in many instances been improved, by 
the exertions of universities, academies, and learned 
societies, we should perhaps be disposed to conjec- 
ture that the distinctions of gender, the termina- 
tions of case, and the indispensable agreement of 
the adjective with its substantive, were so many 
contrivances of the orator, and, in a still greater 
degree, of the poet, for augmenting the range and 
choice in the collocation of words, with an express 
view of diminishing the difficulty of disposing them 
in a metrical form. The following lines occur in 
the first book of the iEneid : — 

" Ter circum Hiacos raptaverat Hectora muros 
Exanimumque auro corpus vendebat Achilles." 

If we regard these words as simple roots, like 
most Persic and English words, which exhibit 
little change of termination, and dismiss all regard 
to number, gender, and case, we must translate 
them as follows :— 

" Three times round Trojan had dragged Hector walls, 
Dead and for gold body was selling Achilles." 

u 4 



296 ENGLISH SENTENCES. 

And it is not until we apply the ordinary rules of 
grammar to them that we perceive the sense is 
very clearly represented in the following transla- 
tion of Dryden : — 

" Thrice round the Trojan walls Achilles drew 
The corpse of Hector, whom in fight he slew. 
Here Priam sues ; and there for sums of gold 
The lifeless body of his son is sold." 

159. Painting is capable of representing only a 
single moment of time in one picture ; while its 
rival, Poetry, not being circumscribed within such 
narrow limits, is adequate in the compass of a few 
lines to describe the march of events, to reveal the 
past, or anticipate the future. Virgil describes a 
series of the leading events of the Trojan war, 
painted on the walls of the Carthaginian Temple. 
Among the subjects we clearly recognise three, as 
occupying large portions of three books of the 
Iliad, — the night adventure of Diomed and 
Ulysses, the procession of Trojan dames to the 
Temple of Minerva, to entreat her to avert the fatal 
effects of Diomed's fury, and the redemption of the 
body of Hector by Priam ; but it appears quite as 
clearly that the dragging the body of Hector round 
the walls of Troy did not constitute one of those 
pictures. The second line of the original defines 
both the time and subject of the painting. It was 
the very moment in which Achilles was in the act 
of disposing of the dead body of Hector to the aged 
Priam for a large ransom, corpus vendebat Achilles ; 
but with what admirable art does the poet contrive 



ENGLISH SENTENCES. 297 

to present to the mind of the reader another picture 
in the first line, by the use of the word raptaverat, 
had dragged^ which greatly enhances the effect of 
the second, as it causes the memory to revert to 
and dwell upon all the circumstances connected 
with the death of the gallant defender of his coun- 
try, who so long averted her fate. Dr. Beattie, in 
his Essay on Language, has noticed the extraordi- 
nary felicity with which Yirgil frequently uses the 
preter-imperfect and preter-pluperfect tenses. In 
the second book, describing the hopeless return of 
Eneas to the burning city to seek for the lost Creusa, 
he makes him say, 

" Irruerant Danai, et tectum omne tenebant ;" 

the Greeks had made an irruption, and were in 
complete possession of the house : which, however, is 
surpassed in beauty by the line which describes his 
desperate errand — 

" Inde domum, si forte pedem, si forte tulisset, 
Me refero — " 

Thence I return home, if by chance, if by the re* 
motest chance, she had gone there. 

160. Of the increased facihty imparted to poetical 
composition from the gender, cases, and variety of 
termination of Greek and Latin words, and the 
consequent greater liberty arising to the artist in 
their arrangement, there can be no doubt whatever ; 
but it is matter of discussion if this advantage is 
not more than counterbalanced by another incon- 



298 ENGLISH SENTENCES. 

venience, if what is gained in sound is not lost in 
sense, and if the gratification of the ear is not 
attained in some degree at the expense of the un- 
derstanding. The genius of the Greek and Latin 
languages, as regards the collocation of words and 
the construction of sentences, is so essentially dif- 
ferent from that of most of the tongues of Modern 
Europe, that unless we arrange the component 
parts somewhat in our own manner, or, in other 
words, go through the process which is technically 
denominated construing, — an operation never per- 
formed by careless readers, and seldom, I believe, 
by readers of any class, — we cannot ascertain the 
clear meaning or feel the full force of the expres- 
sion. This opinion is strongly corroborated by the 
following observations of Dugald Stewart : — " No- 
thing, I apprehend, can show more clearly the use 
we make of words in reasoning than this, that an 
observation, which, when expressed in our own 
language, seems trite or frivolous, often acquires 
the appearance of depth and originality by being 
translated into another. For my own part, at least, 
I am conscious of having been frequently led in this 
way to form an exaggerated idea of the merits of 
ancient and of foreign authors ; and it has happened 
to me more than once, that a sentence which seemed 
at first to contain something highly ingenious and 
profound, Avhen translated into words famihar to 
me appeared obviously to be a trite or nugatory 
proposition. The deranged collocation of the words 
in Latin composition aids powerfully the imposition 



ENGLISH SENTENCES. 299 

we have now been considering, and renders that 
language an inconvenient medium of philosopMcal 
communication, as well as an inconvenient instru- 
ment of accurate thought. Indeed in all languages 
in which this latitude in the arrangement of words 
is admitted, the associations among words must be 
looser than when one invariable order is followed." 
(^Philosophy of the Human Mind^ vol. i. p. 200. 
8vo. edition.) 

161. We know that the Greeks rarely attempted 
the acquirement of any foreign language, and that 
the Romans limited their ambition to the acquiring 
a knowledge of that of Greece. How far this was 
a matter of taste, and how far of necessity, it is 
difficult at this distance of time to estimate. With- 
out a great effort of reflection we cannot realize to 
our own minds the immense difference produced 
between the ancient and the modern world by the 
invention of printing and the multiplication of 
books. Among the Greeks and Romans, from the 
scarcity and dearness of manuscripts, almost every 
species of knowledge was necessarily acquired by 
heart. As we have no reason to believe that the 
powers of the mind are inferior in modern to what 
they were in ancient Europe, the committing to 
memory all the declensions of Greek nouns, and all 
the conjugations of Greek verbs, regular and irre- 
gular, which completely engross so many years of 
an English education, must have been a formidable 
task even when Greek was a living and a spoken 
language. As in English, nouns have no cases. 



300 ENGLISH SENTENCES. 

and verbs few varieties of termination, when the 
pupil completely understands the meaning of the 
particles by which the relations of the first are ex- 
pressed, and the auxiliary verbs to be, and to have, 
by which the tenses of the second are formed, he 
has little more to learn so far as inflection is con- 
cerned. In a general way there must be some con- 
nection between the facility or the contrary of 
acquiring a language, and the progress to be made 
in knowledge by the people speaking that language. 
Language is the great instrument in the advance- 
ment of science. We think in language, we reason 
in language, we record the results of our reasoning 
in language. As the faculties of the human mind 
are limited, and the years of life numbered to all, 
it necessarily follows that the greater the number 
of years devoted to the acquirement of the instru- 
ment, language, the fewer remain for its appli- 
cation; the longer the portion of time consumed in 
mastering the medium of thinldng, the shorter will 
be that which remains for the exercise of thought. 
This will appear probable if we merely contrast the 
simplicity of the English with the complexity of the 
Greek grammar; become more obvious if we sub- 
stitute the Sanskrit for the Greek, the grammar 
of which contains as much matter as most Greek 
lexicons ; more obvious still if we substitute the 
Basque for the Sanskrit, which is so complex and 
crabbed, that many, who have paid some attention 
to it, regard it as altogether unattainable by a 
foreigner ; and we may terminate our climax with 



ENGLISH SENTENCES. SOI 

the Chinese, which is never to be completely ac- 
quired even by the most learned native. According 
to Du Halde, it contains eighty thousand charac- 
ters, of which a knowledge of about ten thousand 
is requisite for transacting the ordinary business of 
life ; the attainment of fifteen or twenty thousand 
constitutes a scholar, among whom the number is 
very small of those who arrive at forty thousand, 
that is, according to Du Halde, who know half the 
language. 

162. Our own language forming the strongest 
possible contrast with that of China, — the one being 
learnt by a native insensibly and almost without 
application, and the other being never completely 
acquired to the end of life, — we have voluntarily 
created a sort of Chinese language for ourselves, by 
restricting the meaning of the word learning to the 
mastery of the mysteries of Greek prosody. This 
is not merely the end and aim, but almost the sole 
end and aim, of the education of the upper classes 
in England at the present moment, to which six or 
seven years are devoted at Eton, and three or four 
more at one of the universities. Few thinking men 
will be disposed to deny that this branch of philology 
occupies a share of the years ordinarily devoted to 
education out of all proportion to its utility or 
intrinsic worth. The value of every language must 
be estimated by regarding it as a key to unlock the 
treasures contained in that language, and perhaps 
in none are contained treasures more rich and va- 
rious than in the Greek ; but the excellence of that 



302 ENGLISH SENTENCES. 

education may well be doubted, whicli appears to 
propose to itself ratber a knowledge of tbe quantity 
of all tbe syllables in tbe Greek language than an 
acquaintance witb all tbe words, and wbicb as to 
tbe words tbemselves is mucb more anxious to 
ascertain tbe mode of tbeir grammatical formation 
tban of tbeir meaning wben formed. As to tbeir 
etymology, tbat circumstance appears to excite no 
attention, as it supposes a knowledge of some of 
tbe Oriental languages from wbicb tbe Greek was 
formed, as tbe Greeks tbemselves came to Greece 
from Asia tbrougb Tbrace, as bas been sbown in 
tbe preceding chapters. If tbe term Greek scholar 
described a person who bad a profound knowledge 
of Greek literature, its value would be very different 
from what it is at present ; but while every page of 
our reviews and periodicals proves bow common a 
thing is a competent, or even a critical acquaintance 
witb tbe Greek language, it unfortunately proves 
still more conclusively bow rare is an intimate and 
comprehensive acquaintance with Greek authors. 
Tbe disproportionate attention to the language, 
and, above all, to the prosody of tbe language, bas 
left no time for tbe literature: — the acquirement of 
the instrument bas superseded tbe application of it. 
163. It now only remains to say a few words as 
to the earliest appearance, gradual formation, and 
complete perfection of tbe English language : and 
those who have not paid some attention to the sub- 
ject will be surprised at being informed tbat English 
sentences, that is, three or four English words in 



M^SO-GOTHIC SENTENCES. 303 

juxtaposition, occur in several instances in the 
Mseso-Gothic gospels of Ulpliilas, a translation 
which there is every reason to believe was com- 
pleted in the fourth century of the Christian era. 

Matt. vi. 13. Ni briggais uns. Bring, or lead us not. 
Mark, i. 33. Jah so baurgs alia garunna, was at daura. And 
all the city was gathered together at the door. 
„ iv. 32. Wairthith allaize grasse maist. Becometh the 
greatest of aU herbs. (Maist, most, for 
greatest.) 
„ vi. 5. Niba faicdiim. siukohn. handuns ga-lagjands, ga- 
hailida. Except that laying his hands on a 
few sick he healed them. 

Note, — If the Codex Argenteus had been one jot less au- 
thentic, or the names of those who have laboured on it — 
Benzelius, Hire, Junius, and Lye- — less respectable, we 
should almost have been tempted to suspect that the above 
was a specimen of a Maccaroni, or fancy language. Faw- 
aim siukaim look like English roots, if I may use the ex- 
pression, with Hebrew plural terminations. 
Mark, vi. 11. Mulda tho undara fotum. The dust under 

your feet, i. e. the mould or earth. 
„ ix. 3. Swa wheitos swe snaiws. As white as snow. 
„ 22. Hilp unsara. Help us. (Hilf, German.) 

„ X. 5. Hardu hairtein. Hardness of heart. 
Luke, ii. 42. Twalib wintrus. Twelve years (winters). 
„ V. 14. Faurbaud imma. Charged him (forbad him). 
„ vi. 42. Let ik uswairpa. Let me pull out ; literally, 

Let I pull out. 
„ vii. 21. Blindaim managaim fragaf siun. Unto many 

blind he gave sight (or seeing). 
„ „ 24. Raus fram winde wagid. A reed (rush) shaken 

(wagged) by the wind. 
„ viii. 32. Hairda sweine. Herd of swine. (Heerda saue, 

German.) 
„ „ 35. Sitandan thana mannan. That man sitting. 

(Sizend den menschen, German.) 



304 IVL^SO-GOTHIC SENTENCES. 

Luke viii. 43. Euna blothis. Running of blood. (Blutgang, 

German.) 
„ X. 10. Faura daurja. Streets, i.e. the space before the 

door. 
„ xiv. 18. Land bauhta. I have bought land. The En- 
glish translation is, " a piece of ground." 
„ „ 19. Yuka auhsne us bauhta fimf. I have bought 

five yoke of oxen* 
„ xviii. 35. Blinda sums sat. A certain blindman, i. e. some 

blind man sat. 
John, vi. 60. Hardu ist thata waurd. This is a hard saying 

(word). 
„ xiv. 37. Saiwala meina faur thuk lagja. I will lay down 

my life (soul) for thy sake (for thee). 

What impression these extracts will produce on 
the minds of others I cannot pretend to determine; 
but for myself, when I read them, it seems to me 
that I am standing at the very fountain head of 
the English language, and I am ready to exclaim 
with Lucretius, " Juvat integros accedere fontes.'^ 
The most remarkable circumstance in the Mseso- 
Gothic is, that it contains in many instances both 
terminations and idioms which appear to be pe- 
culiar to itself and the English. A considerable 
portion of our language seems to have been de- 
rived, not from the fierce followers of Hengist and 
Horsa, nor from the predatory Danes, nor the con- 
quering Normans, but directly from the Mseso- 
Goths on the banks of the Danube ; and as they, 
according to Strabo, were identical with the My- 
sians of Asia Minor, and the Mysians with the 
Trojans, our descent from Brutus, the son of ^neas, 
has some sort of foundation in fact: and in this, and 



ANGLO-SAXON SENTENCES. 305 

probably in almost every other instance, as there is 
no historical truth uncorrupted by fable, so the 
wildest and most extravagant mjrthology has some 
portion founded on reality — some traits copied 
from nature. 

164. Ellis, in his Specimens of Ancient English 
Poetry, has printed a Saxon ode on Athelstan's 
victory, from two MSS. in the Cottonian Library, 
British Museum, Tiberius, B. 4., and Tiberius, A. 6., 
dated a.d. 937 in Gibson's Chronicle, and in Hickes' 
Saxon Grammar A. d. 938, and supposed to be 
written by a contemporary bard, from which I shall 
extract a few lines, with a view of showing the very 
great affinity between our present language and its 
Saxon progenitor. I will only premise that as the 
Maeso- Gothic translation of Ulphilas is supposed to 
have been made about the middle of the fourth cen- 
tury of the Christian era, these Saxon specimens 
are nearly six hundred years later : — 

Vol. i. p. 14. And his brothor eac. And his brother eke. 
„ 16. Swa him gaaethele wses. So to them it destined 

was. 
„ „ That hi set campe oft. That they at camp oft. 

5, 18. Siththan sunne up. Sith that the sun up. 
„ „ On morgen tid. On morning tide. 

„ „ Godes candel beorght. God's candle bright. 

„ „ Thagr laeg secg monig. There lay soldiers many. 

„ 20. Heardes hand to plegan. Hard hands to ply. 
„ „ Land gesohton. The land they sought. 

Faege to gefeohte. Foe to fight. 
„ 24. Gefylled on folc-stede. Filled his folk-stead. 
„ „ And his sunu forlet. And his son was left. 

„ 28. Laetan him behindan. Left they behind. 
„ 30. Ofer brade brinin. Over the broad brine (sea). 
X 



306 



ANGLO-SAXON SENTENCES. 



165. According to TyrwMtt, in Ms Essay on 
the Language and Versification of Chaucer, the 
Anglo-Saxon ceased to be cultivated in England so 
early as the reign of Edward the Confessor. That 
monarch, though born in England, was educated 
in Normandy, at the court of his uncle, Duke 
Kichard II., and, in the words of Ingulphus, had 
become almost a Frenchman. Upon his return 
from thence, and accession to the throne of England 
in 1043, he brought over with him a number of 
Normans, whom he promoted to the highest digni- 
ties ; and under the influence of the king and his 
Norman favourites the whole nation began to lay 
aside their English fashions, and imitate the man- 
ners of the French in many things. Ingulphus 
says expressly that all the nobihty in their courts 
began to speak French as a great piece of gentility. 
The use of the Norman French was of course pro- 
digiously extended by the Conquest in 1066, and 
the consequent monopoly of all the great offices in 
Church and State by the natives of that province, 
though the Anglo-Saxon language was restored in 
the law courts in the 36th of Edward III., where 
it had been superseded by the Norman. The pro- 
ceedings in parliament, howev^er, with very few 
exceptions, appear to have been all in French, and 
the statutes continued to be published in the same 
language for above one hundred and twenty years, 
until the 1st of Richard III. in the year 1483. 



ON THE GENIUS OF THE LANGUAGES OF ASIA. 307 



CHAPTEK XIIL 

ON THE GENIUS OF THE LANGUAGES OF ASIA AS COM- 
PARED WITH THOSE OF EUROPE. 

166. Though the Greeks and Romans despised the 
Asiatics, and indeed all the rest of mankind, as 
Barbarians, never studied their languages, never 
paid any attention to their literature, and hardly- 
appeared to know that they possessed any, they 
were at any rate aware that there was a radical 
difference of character between Asiatic and Euro- 
ropean eloquence, and that the former was charac- 
terised by a more free use and bold application of 
figures, by a pomp of language always fluctuating on 
the verge of, and frequently falling into, bombast, 
by more of imagination and less of logic, and alto- 
gether by a nearer approximation to the essence of 
poetr}^, than the most fanciful and florid Euro- 
pean orator could ever venture on. If they had 
been more familarly acquainted with Asiatic poetry, 
they would have been still more impressed with 
the striking difference of its nature from their own, 
and the widely diversified feelings, and dissimilar 
laws of taste, by which such compositions were 
produced and regulated. In several instances, 
as I shall show, that which is the exception to the 
Europeans appears to form the rule to the Asiatics ; 
the ornaments of style among the former, con- 

X 2 



308 ON THE GENIUS OF THE LANGUAGES OF ASIA 

stitute style itself among the latter ; they appear 
to be never satisfied unless they can gild refined 
gold, paint the lily, and add fresh perfume to the 
violet ; so that while in reasoning on political or 
philosophical subjects, they appear to be little 
better than children of a larger growth ; in every 
thing connected with taste they seem to fall below 
children, and their poetry, made up as it is of 
strings of metaphors, becomes monotonous from 
its uniformity, and feeble from its want of con- 
trast, and many Asiatic poems appear to bear no 
inconsiderable resemblance to a Chinese picture, 
which, though glowing with gaudy colours pos- 
sesses no shadow, no perspective, no repose, and 
no keeping. 

167. There are few authors to whom Oriental 
literature is under more deep obligations than to 
Sir "William Jones; few who, like him, have not 
merely pointed out original and important sources 
of knowledge, but contributed in no inconsiderable 
degree to render them accessible. He was equally 
remarkable for his ardour and industry in philo- 
logical pursuits from a very early period of life, 
until its premature and lamented close, j^othing 
short of a devoted fondness for such studies could 
have conducted him to such gigantic attainments ; 
yet it may be doubted if the enthusiasm which 
animated him in the pursuit, did not in many 
instances greatly exaggerate the value of the 
object, and induce him to form a very false esti- 
mate of its relative worth. I find so many exam- 



AS COMPAEED WITH THOSE OF EUROPE. 309 

pies of this in his Works, as to oblige me not only 
to form the opinion that many of his particular 
decisions are unfounded, but to come to the general 
conclusion, that to the end of his life the deli- 
cacy and justness of his taste were far inferior 
to the profundity and universality of his know- 
ledge. In his Treatise on Oriental Poetry, after 
quoting some remarks of Demetrius Phalereus 
on the works of Sappho, he proceeds to say, those 
who admit the accuracy of these observations will 
not be surprised that the Oriental poets surpass, 
in beauty of diction and force of images, all the 
authors of Europe, with the exception of the Lyric 
Poets among the Greeks, Horace among the Latins, 
and Marino among the Italians. ( Works^ vol. xii. 
p. 186.) This is deliberately and decidedly pre- 
ferring the Asiatic poets to Homer and Yirgil, 
Tasso and Milton, — a judgment which I believe will 
never be acquiesced in, in Europe, at any distance 
of time. The exception also in favour of Marino is 
not a little remarkable, an author not classed by 
the best Italian critics among their great poets, 
and who, it appears to me, would be too much 
honoured in being compared to Ovid. 

168. The specimens of Persic poetry which Sir 
William Jones has exhibited in his Grammar of 
that language are, for the most part, so feeble and 
commonplace, so full of cold and petty conceits, 
so like a schoolboy's exercise who is under the 
necessity of being poetical invita Minerva^ that it 
appears to me so far from inducing any one to learn 

X 3 



810 ON THE GENIUS OF THE LANGUAGES OE ASIA 

the language, tliey produce quite an opposite 
tendency. Their character is well described in the 
following passage of a Turkish author, Nabi Effendi, 
which I quote as a rare example of good taste, and 
a proof that the East has produced at least one 
Quintilian. " Do you wish, my son, that your 
verses, after being esteemed by your contem- 
poraries, should descend to posterity? Let the 
sound always be an echo of the sense ; under an 
ingenious emblem, under a subtle allegory, let them 
always conceal an useful truth; in a word, let them 
always tend to make men more virtuous. The 
garden of poetry is dry and barren if it is not 
watered by the streams of philosophy. The greater 
part of our middling poets talk of nothing but 
narcissuses, locks of hair, wine, and nightingales. 
If they wish to draw a picture of the imaginary 
beauty of whom they are enamoured, they com- 
pare her sometimes to the spring, and sometimes to 
an enamelled meadow ; her lips are like the rose, 
and her complexion like the jessamine; servile 
and cold imitators, their sluggish imagination fur- 
nishes them with no new images ; they dare not 
walk in any path that has not been previously 
trodden." {Jones's TFbrA:^, vol. xii. p. 292.) 

169. Sir WiUiam Jones attempts to account for 
and vindicate the nature and profusion of Oriental 
imagery, by considerations deduced from climate 
and modes of life. It is very usual, says he, in all 
countries to make frequent allusions to the bright- 
ness of the celestial luminaries which give light 



AS COMPARED WITH THOSE OF EUROPE. 311 

to all, but the metaphors taken from them have an 
additional beauty if we consider them as made by 
a nation (the Arabians), who pass most of their 
nights in the open air or in tents, and consequently 
see the moon and stars in their greatest splendour. 
This way of considering their poetical figures will 
give many of them a grace which they would not 
have in our languages; so, when they compare the 
foreheads of their mistresses to the morning, their 
locks to the night, their faces to the sun, to the 
moon, or the blossoms of jasmine, their cheeks to 
roses or ripe fruit, their teeth to pearls, hailstones, 
or snow- drops, their eyes to the flowers of the 
narcissus, their curled hair to black scorpions and 
to hyacinths, their lips to rubies or wine, the form 
of their breasts to pomegranates, and the colour of 
them to snow, their shape to that of a pine tree, and 
their stature to that of a cypress, a palm tree, or a 
javelin — these comparisons, many of which would 
seem forced in our idioms, have undoubtedly a 
great delicacy in theirs, and affect their minds in a 
peculiar manner. ( Works^ vol. x. p. 334.) 

170. Admitting the justness of this defence, an 
European, I imagine, will be still of opinion that 
such a profusion of ornament ought to be limited to 
poetry : but this is so far from being the case, that 
we find long passages in various historical works in 
precisely the same taste, in Turkish, Persic, and 
Arabic. Take the following example for instance : 
" When the whirlwind of fear had torn the sail of 

X 4 



312 ON THE GENIUS OF THE LANGUAGES OF ASIA 

their understanding, and the deluge of despair had 
submerged the ship of their hope, with a view of 
escaping from the gulf of danger, and reaching the 
port of safety, they turned the rudder of flight, and 
unfurled the sails of precipitate retreat." {Jones ^ 
voLxii. p. 189.) Passages of this sort are so rare 
in any European work of a historical nature, that a 
great deal of research is necessary to discover them; 
one such however I have met with in Smollett's 
History of England, which is quoted by Blair as 
an exemplification of the manner in which history 
ought not to be written. Describing the Act of Par- 
liament for preventing irregular marriages, he says, 
" The Bill underwent a great number of alterations 
and amendments, which were not effected without 
violent contest ; at length, however, it was floated 
through both Houses on the tide of a great majo- 
rity, and steered into the safe harbour of royal 
approbation." Were it necessary to adduce an 
instance how much more impressive is a single 
well-selected metaphor than a long string of meta- 
phors, such a passage might be found in Lord 
Bolingbroke's Eemarks on the History of England. 
It is near the conclusion of his work, where he is 
describing the behaviour of Charles the First to his 
last Parliament. " In a word," says he, " about a 
month after their meeting he dissolved them ; and 
as soon as he had dissolved them he repented, but 
he repented too late, of his rashness. Well might 
he repent, for the vessel was nov/ full, and this last 
drop made the waters of bitterness overflow. Here," 



AS COMPAKED WITH THOSE OF EUKOPE. 313 

he adds, " we draw the curtain, and put an end to 
our remarks." 

171. The English reader can form no conception 
of the extent to which the most gaudy ornaments 
of poetry are introduced into historical works 
by Oriental writers, and I shall therefore adduce 
two or three more short illustrations. The two 
first are from the History of the Life of Nadir 
Shah, a work written in Persic, and translated into 
French by Sir William Jones, for the use of the 
King of Denmark. The following passage describes 
the commencement of the year of the Hegira 1139, 
and of the Christian era 1726. — " On the 26th of 
the month Kegeb the Sultan of the Celestial Lumi- 
naries (the Sun) transported himself into the city 
of the Eam (the sign Aries). The half-blown 
buds of the roses, resembling beautiful youths, and 
clothed in the mantle of Spring, sported in the 
recesses of the gardens, and on the banks of the 
streams. The tulip, the bride of the smiling season, 
and the odoriferous shrubs, opened and vied with 
each other in the abode of the groves. The skilful 
hands of nature painted with the most splendid 
colours the cheeks of the wild roses and the jessa- 
mine. The nightingale, enamoured of the rose, 
sharpened the sword of his tongue to vanquish his 
rivals. The dove, amorous of the cypress, sighed 
tenderly on the branches of that beloved tree, whose 
leaves appeared to assume the sharpness of daggers, 
to serve as so many guards to her pleasures.'^ 
{Jones ^ vol. xi. p. 97.) Here we have a poetical 



814 ON THE GENIUS OE THE LANGUAGES OE ASIA 

account of the opening of the following year : — 
" The Sun, that monarch crowned with gold, after 
having displayed his magnificence in the house of 
Pisces, passed into that of Aries on the 7th of the 
month Chaaban. The spring, followed by the 
floating clouds, and armed with the lances and 
javelins of the rays of the Star of Day, marched 
against the troops of Winter, and wrote on the 
plains the decree of the expulsion of Dei (January). 
The verdant plain again put forth her branches in 
the garden of roses, and the feast of the new year 
was celebrated with pomp and splendour." {Jones ^ 
vol. xi. p. 111.) 

172. My readers, I entertain no doubt, are abun- 
dantly satisfied mth the preceding extracts ; but as 
it may be urged that they are taken from the works 
of authors comparatively unknown, I give one more 
from Arabshah's Life of Tamerlane, a work which 
is mentioned with high approbation by Sir William 
Jones, in more than one passage, as one of the 
noblest productions of the Arabian historians. He 
says the Arabs have no poems that can be strictly 
denominated heroic. They have, indeed, elegant 
histories which are adorned with all the graces of 
poetry. In these histories we meet with images 
whose features are bold and prominent, striking 
expressions, beautiful descriptions, and sentiments 
terminated by words of a similar sound. The fol- 
lowing is an example selected from the History of 
Tamerlane, written by Arabshah, in which that 
author, in a florid description, compares the army 



AS COMPARED WITH THOSE OF EUROPE. 315 

of the Prince to the Spring : — " When IN^ature, like 
a skilful servant, decked the earth with the orna- 
ments of a bride, and the groves reassumed their 
splendid verdure, the victorious troops covered the 
country, and passed like dragons over the plains. 
Their warlike music resembled the thunder which 
is contained in the clouds of spring, and their coats 
of mail shone like the dazzling splendour of light- 
ning. Their massy shields covered them like the 
rainbow suspended over the mountains. Their 
lances and their javelins rustled like the branches 
of the young shrubs and trees. Their scymitars 
flashed like the meteors, and the shouts of the army 
resembled the report of the bursting of a thunder 
cloud. The banners, glittering in the air, were like 
anemonies, and the tents like trees loaded with 
golden buds. The army diffused itself like a tor- 
rent, and waved like the branches of a forest agi- 
tated by the tempest. Tamerlane, at the head of 
his troops, advanced through groves arrayed in 
verdure, and strewed with myrtle and odoriferous 
flowers. Joy was his companion, gladness his 
leader, contentment the friend of his heart, and 
success his inseparable attendant." {Jones^ vol. xii. 
p. 195.) 

173. If the above and the preceding passages are 
to be regarded as fair specimens of the mode in 
which history is written in the East, it requires not 
the spirit of prophecy to foretell that it can never, 
by any possibility, be much read in the West. Not 
that descriptions of nature may not with propriety 



316 ON THE GENIUS OF THE LANGUAGES OF ASIA 

form a part, of history, even wlien written in the 
most pure and elevated style ; and we find many 
such passages in an historian who is at once per- 
haps the most poetical and the most philosophical 
of that class of writers ; but they must not be intro- 
duced merely for the sake of ornament, and form as 
it were an excrescence in the work. In the follow- 
ing extract from Tacitus, containing the account of 
the murder of the Empress Agrippina, by her son 
Nero, there can be no doubt that the great histo- 
rian intended to contrast the calmness and beauty, 
the immutable laws and undeviating regularity of 
the physical world, with the wild passions, the tur- 
bulent desires, and the moral deformity of man. 
It is a piece of painting conceived in the same 
spirit with the short dialogue between Duncan and 
Banquo, as they are approaching the gates of Mac- 
beth' s castle ; of which Sir Joshua Reynolds finely 
remarks, that it perfectly contrasts the scene of 
horror that immediately succeeds.* " Noctem si- 
deribus inlustrem et placido mare quietam quasi 
convincendum ad scelus Dii praebuere. Nee mul- 

* " That tills iniquitous scene should not be wrapped in dark- 
ness, the care of Providence seems to have interposed. The 
night was calm and serene ; the stars shot forth their brightest 
lustre, and the sea presented a smooth expanse. Agrippina 
went on board, attended by only two of her domestic train. 
One of them, Crepereius Gallus, took his place near the steer- 
age ; the other, a female attendant, by name Acerronia, stretched 
herself at the foot of the bed where her mistress lay, and in the 
fulness of her heart expressed her joy to see the son awakened 
to a sense of his duty, and the mother restored to his good 
graces." — Murphy's Tacitus. 



AS COMPARED WITH THOSE OF EUROPE. 317 

turn erat progressa navis, duobus e numero famili- 
arium Agrippinam comitantibus : ex quels Crepe- 
reius Gallus haud procul gubernaculis adstabat: 
Acerronia, super pedes cubitantis reclinis, ' poeniten- 
tiam iilii, et reciperatam matris gratiam/ per gau- 
dium memorabat" {Taciti Annal.^ lib. xiv. c. 5). 

-174. Even many of the ornaments of poetry may 
advantageously find a place in history, provided 
they are short and introduced with skill. There is 
one example in Tacitus well worth remarking, on 
account of the consummate management with which 
he has availed himself of forebodings, or prophetic 
melancholy, as a source of the pathetic, in the con- 
clusion of the description of the triumph of Ger- 
manicus."^ " Augebat intuentium visus eximia 
ipsius species, currusque quinque liberis onustus: 
sed suberat occulta formido reputantibus 'haud 
prosperum in Druso patre ejus favorem vulgi : avun- 
culum ejusdem Marcellum flagrantibus plebis studiis 
intra juventem ereptum : breves et infaustos populi 
Eomani amores.' " {Taciti Ann. ^ lib. ii. c. 41.) To 

* "Amidst the grandeur of tbis magnificent spectacle, nothing 
appeared so striking as the graceful person of Germanicus, with 
his five children mounted on the triumphal car. The joy of 
the multitude, however, was not without a tincture of melan- 
choly. Men remembered that Drusus, the father of Germanicus, 
was the darling of the people, and yet proved unfortunate : they 
called to mind young Marcellus, blessed with all his country's 
wishes, yet prematurely snatched away. It happened, they 
said, by some fatality, that whenever a favoured character was 
the delight of the Roman people, their affections ended always 
in a general mourning." — Murphy's Tacitus. 



318 ON THE GENIUS OF THE LANGUAGES OF ASIA 

the reader who is already acquainted with his pre- 
carious situation and future fate, it is perhaps more 
touching than the actual account of his death. It 
suggests to the mind the gloomy and inexorable 
character of Tiberius, restrained in the pursuit of 
his desires by no considerations, divine or human ; 
his hatred of his nephew, the short subsequent life 
of Germanicus, his premature death at Antioch, the 
suspicion of poison, the lamentations of the legions, 
and the mourning of the Koman people. There is 
a still finer exemplification of the use of this figure, 
if such it may be called, in perhaps the finest tra- 
gedy the genius of man has ever produced, the 
Othello of Shakspeare. I allude to the meeting 
between Othello and Desdemona at Cyprus, which 
is almost their last perfectly happy one, when the 
former says — 

" If it were now to die, 

'Twere now to be most happy ; for I fear 

My soul hath her content so absolute, 

That not another comfort like to this 

Succeeds in unknown fate." 

To the reader, or the spectator, who is aware 
that lago is resolved on their destruction, that they 
are exposed to the machinations of a fiend in human 
shape, and stand on the giddy verge of a precipice 
without being at all aware of their danger ; that the 
virtues of the Moor, respecting which we feel the 
more assured as they are ascribed to him by his 
most bitter enemy, " his constant, loving, noble 
nature," are to be turned against him ; and that the 
youth, the playfulness, the beautiful freshness of 



AS COMPARED WITH THOSE OF EUROPE. 319 

life in Desdemona, " that yet has felt no age, nor 
known no sorrow;" the simplicity, the innocence, 
the celestial purity, that, so far from being able to 
do evil, can hardly even conceive of its existence ; 
that all these fascinating and noble quahties will, 
by the consummate art of the poet, be made to 
work her perdition more certainly and inevitably 
than the most hideous vices could do ; — the passage 
becomes almost as pathetic and heart-rending as 
the more stormy and impassioned scenes in the 
three last acts. 

175. Oriental poetry, as compared with E uropean, 
appears to appeal almost exclusively to the senses, 
while the latter addresses itself jointly to the senses, 
the mind, and the heart. One might fancy that 
Dr. Darwin had formed his Theory of Poetry from 
a perusal of the authors of the East. According 
to him the chief excellence of poetry consisted in 
presenting a succession of vivid and well-coloured 
pictures to the eye, forgetting that this, however 
well effected, can never rise above description, and 
that in all ages and countries the merely descriptive 
has ranked immeasurably below the tragic and epic 
poet, as the landscape painter is justly regarded as 
inferior to the historical. Darwin was consistent, 
and to a considerable extent acted on his own 
theory, and with what success is attested by the 
complete oblivion into which his " Botanic Garden " 
and " Temple of Nature " have fallen. I will illus- 
trate my meaning by contrasting an ode from the 
Persic of Hafiz, translated as closely as possible by 



320 ON THE GENIUS OF THE LANGUAGES OF ASIA 

Sir William Jones, with a passage from Pope's 
Eloisa to Abelard. ^' sweet gale, thou bearest 
the fragrant scent of my beloved ; thence it is that 
thou hast stolen this musky odour. Beware! do 
not steal : what hast thou to do with her tresses ? 
rose, what art thou to be compared with her 
bright face ? She is fresh, and thou art rough with 
thorns. narcissus, what art thou in comparison 
of her languishing eye ? Her eye is only sleepy, 
but thou art sick and faint. pine, compared 
with her graceful stature, what honour hast thou 
in the garden ? wisdom, what wouldst thou 
choose, if to choose were in thy power, in prefer- 
ence to her love ? sweet basil, what art thou to 
be compared with her fresh cheeks ? They are per- 
fect musk, but thou art soon withered. Come, my 
beloved, and charm Haiiz with thy presence, if thou 
canst but stay with him for a single day." {Jones ^ 
vol. X. page 351.) The passage from Pope is chiefly 
descriptive, or it would be neither apposite nor fair; 
but the reader can hardly fail to remark how much 
the general effect is enhanced by the personification 
of melancholy in the last eight lines, and, although 
a distinct image is presented to the mind in almost 
every one of them, how finely they combine to form 
a harmonious whole. 

" The darksome pines that o'er yon rocks reclin'd 
W^ave high, and murmur to the hollow wind, 
The wandering streams that shine between the hills, 
The grots that echo to the tinkling rills, 
The dying gales that pant upon the trees. 
The lakes that quiver to the curling breeze ; 



AS COMPAKED WITH THOSE OF EUROPE. 321 ■ 

No more these scenes my meditations aid, 
Or lull to rest the visionary maid ; 
But o'er the twilight groves and dusky caves, 
Long-sounding aisles, and intermingled graves, 
Black Melancholy sits, and round her throws 
A death-like silence, and a dread repose ; 
Her gloomy presence saddens all the scene. 
Shades every flower, and darkens every green, 
Deepens the murmur of the falling floods, 
And breathes a browner horror on the woods." 

176. The radical difference of genius and cha- 
racter between Oriental and European poetry, and 
indeed literary compositions in general, appears to 
depend less on diversity of race, of climate, of 
manners, and of religion, than on the nature of 
language itself, which becomes less harsh in sound, 
and less figurative in structure, with the progress of 
civilization. Probably all, certainly the great body 
of the words of every language in existence, were 
primarily the names of material, sensible objects, 
from which they were gradually extended to de- 
note intellectual operations and moral qualities, the 
thoughts of the head and the feelings of the heart. 
In some of the oriental languages we can trace the 
successive stages of this extension, through which 
the primary signification gradually becomes more 
and m.ore faint until it finally disappears, and the 
word exhibits no trace whatever of its etymology, 
the last meaning having nothing in common with 
the first. The Persic word Sar, the head, appears 
to exhibit three distinct stages, or gradations of 
meaning. 

1. The head, the chief member of the body. 

Y 



322 ON THE GENIUS OF THE LANGUAGES OF ASIA 

2. By an easy metaphor, of which we are hardly 

sensible, it signifies top, principle, origin, 
surmnit, extremity, end, point, a salient 
angle, any projecting part ; great, large, 
highest, greatest, chief. " 

3. The following significations retain hardly a 

trace of the etymological meaning. The 
atmosphere, a gentle gale, desire, longing, 
wish, love, intention, will, cheerfulness, a 
veil, awning, canopy, covering, complete, 
perfect, entire, a collar ; also a log of wood 
fastened to a mastifi''s neck, a Turcoman 
shoe, or sandal, and in the last the original 
signification reappears, the capital of a p)illar, 
{Richardson.) 
Ill . One of the poorest and most narrow of all 
written languages is the Hebrew, and in that tongue 
we find the same word employed in a variety of sig- 
nifications. In 1 Chron. xxvii. 25., for instance, the 
word Atzroth is translated both treasures and store- 
houses, being formed from the verb Atzar, to heap 
up, to lay up, though in the first instance it sig- 
nifies that which is laid up, and in the second, the 
place where it is laid up. Again, in Eccles. vii. 6. 
the crackling of thorns is described by the generic 
word Kol, voice, the language possessing no appro- 
priate term ; and in verse 9. of the same chapter, 
the expression patient in spirit^ in the English ver- 
sion, is rendered by Erech Rooach, long in spirit^ in 
the original. In Isaiah xxi. 10. corn is denominated 
Ben Garni, son of my threshing floor. By contrac- 



AS COMPARED WITH THOSE OF EUROPE. 323 

tion, Goren, omitting the Ben, son, and without any 
figure, came to signify corn itself, that which is 
threshed, for the place where it was threshed. By 
substituting C hard, or K, for the initial G, and 
reading the Hebrew letters without any point, Goren 
became our English word Corn, the Dutch Koorn, 
and the German, Danish, and Swedish Korn, while 
by the addition of the Persic Ea, the mark of the 
oblique case to Goren, we have the etymology of 
our English word Garner, the place where corn is 
deposited, or stored. The metaphors formed from 
the Hebrew word Bar, son, and the equivalent 
Arabic one, Ebn, would fill several pages. Some of 
the metaphors in Arabic, under the word Bint, 
daughter, are highly poetical : for instance, we have 

The daughter of the sea (a syren, mermaid, or 
dolphin). 

The daughter of the mountain (echo). 

The daughter of the lip (speech). 

The daughter of reflection (prudence). 

The daughter of the grape (wine). . 

The daughter of death (a fever). 

The daughters of the earth (rivulets). 

The daughters of the eyes (tears). 

The following orientalism occurs in Pindar : — 

" As men o'er ocean's paths who sail, 
Implore from heaven a favouring gale, 
And others joy when at their call 
Showers, the clouds' humid daughters, fall." 

Wheelrighfs Pindar, 11th Olympic Ode. 

In Arabic, however, rain is the son of the clouds. 

Y 2 



324 ON THE GENIUS OF TIIE LANGUAGES OF ASIA 

178. If we revert to the mode in wliicli Europe 
Yv^as originally peopled, we sliall find abundant 
reasons for coming to the conclusion that the great 
mass of inhabitants came from Asiatic Scandinavia, 
Scythia, or Tartary, although small colonies may 
have found their way, at a very early period, into 
Greece, Italy, Sicily, and Spain, direct from Egypt, 
Phoenicia, Iberia, or Carthage. There can be as 
little doubt that Central and Northern, were peopled 
by the overflowing population of Southern Asia^ 
impelled first in a northerly, and subsequently in a 
western direction, by the operation of the principle 
of population, which ordains that the consumers of 
food and the supply of food shall increase in dif- 
ferent ratios, and be regulated by different laws. 
Almost all the native languages of India may be 
regarded as varieties or dialects of the Sanskrit, and 
all those of Western Asia, the Chaldee, Syriac, 
Hebrew, and Samaritan, as well as two African 
languages, the Ethiopic and Amharic, as varieties 
or dialects of the Arabic. All these languages, as 
well as the Persic, must have been carried into the 
regions of the North, by the emigrants from Southern 
Asia. Asia, then, was the great original storehouse 
of languages, and to the written languages of that 
continent, more especially the Sanskrit and Arabic, 
which may each be regarded as the parent language 
of a numerous family. Etymology must look for 
the greatest enlargement, and the most essential 
improvement. Another important consequence re- 
sults from this state of thino-s. The Asiatic Ian- 



AS COMPARED WITH THOSE OF EUROPE. 62b 

guages stand in the relation to tliose of Europe of 
primary to secondary, of un derived to derived, of 
simple to compound. The necessary result is, if 
not a greater simplicity of structure, at any rate 
an incomparably less change in the commencements 
and terminations of those primitive roots from the 
endless combinations of which all the words in every 
language are made up. From this circumstance 
a diligent examination of the Oriental languages 
is likely not merely to reward the labours of the 
grammarian and the philologist, by throwing new 
light on the formation of words and their mode of 
signification, but to open new views as to the origin 
and nature of language itself; subjects of which the 
science of metaphysics has hitherto treated in a mode 
little calculated either to convey information, or 
produce conviction. Another effect appears to have 
resulted from this mixture of races and confusion of 
languages in the vast regions of Scythia, in the pro- 
duction of a new race physically superior to their 
progenitors, and of a new family of languages, 
which, by being less figurative, were in the course 
of ages to become better adapted to the use of, per- 
haps even better adapted to form, a more intellectual 
and a superior people, destined to carry literature 
and science to a greater elevation than they had 
ever experienced in Asia. In Homer and Hesiod, 
the oldest poets of Greece, we no longer meet mth 
those strings of metaphors which we have found in 
the extracts from the Asiatic authors, at the com- 
mencement of this chapter ; and with the introduc- 

Y 3 



326 ON THE GENIUS OF THE LANGUAGES OF ASIA 

tion of some shadow, the remaining lights became 
more brilliant ; with the eradication of the weeds, 
the flowers gained both in size and beauty ; and the 
lopping of excrescences by the discrimination of 
taste appears to have imparted additional vigour to 
the productive power of genius. 

179. As the Pelasgi, the earliest inhabitants of 
Greece, Italy, and Sicily, appear to have proceeded 
direct from Scythia, through Thrace and Illyria, 
and as the term Celtae, the earliest inhabitants not 
merely of the West, according to Herodotus, but 
of the whole of Europe, is a name almost co-exten- 
sive with and commutable for that of Scythaa ; it 
necessarily follows that there is not the smallest 
reason for regarding the Greeks and Romans as 
being in any respect a difl'erent race from the 
people they were pleased, with as little philosophy 
as philanthropy, to denominate barbarians.* These 

* An Italian author, who has devoted a quarto volume to an 
investigation of the language of the primitive inhabitants of 
Italy, with more learning and research, indeed, than success, as 
it appears to me, remarks very truly and justly on this part of 
the subject: " Questi Pelasgi primi abitatori della Grecia come 
si e detto, e provato degli altri primi delle terre ferme, non an- 
darono cola per mare : ne siegue quasi innegabilmente che vi 
andarono adunque dalle regioni de^ Celti piu Orientali, o degli 
Sciti padri o fratelli de' Celti, da genti Celtiche, o Scitiche 
essendo state da principio abitate tutte le terre che sono all' 
destra del basso Istro e piu vicine alia Grecia, come si puo 
vedere anche dall' Istoria Universale che va dando alia Ee- 
publica Letteraria una dotta Societa di valentissimi Inglesi, 
e dair Istoria particolare de' Celti pubblicata dal' Sig. Pel- 
loutier ; due opere che si prima mi fossero giunte da molte 
fatiche mi avrebbero esentato. E si i primi Greci furono Celti 



AS COMPARED WITH THOSE OE EUROPE. 327 

barbarians were the descendants of the Celtas, and 
their own ancestors were no more than Celtse, 
which is the name by which the Scythians appear 
to have been known after crossing the river Tanais, 
or modern Don, which divides Asia from Europe, 
though that term was varied by those of Cimmerii, 
its contraction Cimbri or Cymri, Gaels or Gauls, 
and at a subsequent period Teutones, though the 
latter were equally Celtas. In the age of Caesar, 
and still more in that of Tacitus, there was no 
doubt a perceptible difference in the inhabitants of 
parts of Gaul, or modern France, and Germany, and 
perhaps also in the language or languages of the 
two countries ; but they were all primarily Celtse or 
Scythians. As to the idea that any language 
approximating to the modern German was spoken 
in that country in the age of Tacitus, nothing can 
be more chimerical. The Mseso- Gothic Gospels of 
Ulphilas, which are incomparably the oldest spe- 
cimen in existence of any language approaching 
to the Teutonic or Anglo-Saxon, appear to me to 
be as much English as German; and I am not 
aAvare that there is any written composition in 
existence between that and the Frankish Version of 
the Gospels by Otfried, about the year 870. Long 

o Sciti, come pare innegabile, si vede tosto che non poche volte 
sara Celtico per origine cio che mirasi come Greco. Final- 
mente non e a dubitare, die piii vocaboli Greci e Latini non 
abbiano a risguardarsi come derivati dal Grallico, e dal Ger- 
manico antico."— Delia Lingua de' Primi Ahitatori delV Italia, 
Opera Postuma del Padre Stanislao Bardetti della Com- 
pagnia de GesH in Modena, 1772. (Page 233.) 

Y 4 



328 ON THE GENIUS OF THE LANGUAGES OF ASIA 

treatises have been written to prove that the Latin 
was derived from the German, and in one sense it 
is true, and equally so of the Greek. If by the 
German we understand some language spoken in 
the country now denominated Germany, and sup- 
pose that that language was the Celtic or the 
Scythic, there can be doubt that the Greek, the 
Latin, and the Gothic were so many dialects or 
varieties of that language * ; but if by the German 
we understand the language actually spoken in 
Germany, it is notorious that it is of very modern 
date, and that it would not be more extravagant to 
attempt to derive the Latin from the English. As 
there was a period, and that probably not more 
than one thousand years before the Christian era, 
when all Europe was possessed by the Celtse, (for, 
according to Herodotus, Scythia, the country from 
which they undoubtedly proceeded, only began to 
be peopled about fifteen hundred years before the 
same period, that is, one thousand years before the 

* One of the most distinguished among the authors of mo- 
dern Germany has the following passage on this subject : — " We 
are accustomed to talk of our own language as having above 
all others the advantage of being pure and original. This might 
be very true in its utmost extent of the old Saxon language, 
but nothing can be less so of our present German. Ours is a 
modern dialect, which arose in the Carolingian age, out of the 
confusion of many old German dialects, and no inconsiderable 
infusion of Latin vocables ; and ought in truth to be classed 
among those languages which arose out of the political inter- 
mixture of the Roman and Teutonic nations." — Lectures on 
the History of Literature Ancient and Modern, by Frederick 
Schlegely voL i. p. 295. 



AS COMPARED WITH THOSE OF EUROPE. dZ^ 

reign of Darius Hystaspes,) it follows, as a necessary 
consequence, that all the leading languages, both of 
ancient and modern Europe, were derived from the 
Celtic, with the exception of the Sarmatian or 
Slavonic, which is probably quite as ancient as 
the Celtic, the two forming the great branches 
or divisions of the original Scythic stock, original 
as compared with the European languages, but 
secondary as compared with the Asiatic, being 
itself principally composed of the Sanskrit, Persic, 
and Arabic, and their dialects, many of which it is 
hopeless to attempt to trace, as they have long since 
disappeared, having probably never had an exist- 
ence as written languages. 

180. According to my view of the subject, the 
origin and affinities of the principal European 
languages may be stated in the follomng way, and 
supported by the follomng authorities : — 

Sarmatian, or Slavonic. Russian. 
Polish. 
Bohemian. 
Transylvanian. 
Croatian. 

Scythic. Ancient Celtic, which Etruscan. 

has disappeared for Latin, or ^olic Greek, 
centuries as a spoken Greek, or Doric, Ionic, 
language. and Attic. 

M^eso-Gothic. 

Modern Celtic, which Irish. 

still continues to be Highland Scotch, 
spoken in some coun- Welch, 
tries of Europe, much Manks. 
mixed with Gothic. Cornish. 

Brittanisli, or Armorican. 



ON THE GENIUS Of THE LANduA&EHOF ASIA 

181. Among the few words wMch formed a part 
of the language of the ancient Scythians, which 
have been transmitted to us by the unbounded 
curiosity of Herodotus, and which his still more 
extraordinary accuracy has enabled us to identify, 
in other well-known languages, we may mention, 
first, the name of the fabulous Arimaspians, which 
he himself resolves into Arima, one, and Spu, eye. 
The first may be called an Arabic word, as we find 
Arim in Eichardson's Dictionary of that language, 
with the signification of one. Spu appears to be 
cognate with the German Spaw or Spa, a spring. 
In Persic, Arabic, and Hebrew, the same word 
signifies both eye and fountain, or Spu may by possi- 
bility be the Greek word Ops, eye, reversed, that is, 
written in the Asiatic manner from right to left. 
Another Scythic compound word is Oior-pata, 
which the historian informs us was equivalent to 
menslayers. In Herodotus this word is written 
without any mark of aspiration, but if we had found 
it in Homer it would probably have taken the 
Digamma, and become Foior. But it is not neces- 
sary to suppose the existence of any extraneous 
letter, as Wav or \^au, in Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, 
and Samaritan (Phoenician ?) is both a vowel and 
a consonant, and, according to circumstances, either 
6>, (96>, 11^ or V. The Syriac Yau (0) is clearly the 
oriofin of the Greek Omicron, which in the above 
word Oior as clearly had the power of the Roman 
y or F, and the Greek Phi, which is merely Omi- 
cron divided by a perpendicular stroke, which was 



AS COMPAEED WITH THOSE OF EUROPE. odl 

probably, in the first instance, added to the vowel 
to denote that it assumed a consonant character, 
as 0(op, 4>;o^ ; and with this reading, we have 

Fear (Celtic), a man. 

Vair (Mseso-Gothic), a man. 

Yir (Latin), a man. 

Virah (Sanskrit), a hero, a warrior. 
Abaris, the fabulous Scythian prophet, was pri- 
marily a name of Apollo, or the Sun, and nothing 
more, and when the etymology of the word was 
lost. Mythology invented the extravagant exploits 
ascribed to Abaris. It continued, however, to be 
a current word in Latin, slightly altered to Jubar, 
a sun-beam, which was written originall}^, in all 
probability, Aibar, hke Iran, the ancient name of 
Persia, in Oriental characters Airan. 

182. As, according to the accounts of the Greeks 
themselves, Prometheus and Deucalion were Scy- 
thians, the presumption is that HeUen, the son of 
the latter, was also of the same race, and we dis- 
cover abundant reason for coming to the conclusion 
that the Scythian blood had not disappeared in the 
next generation, for if we analyse the initial double 
letter in the name of Xuthus (Xi) into its com- 
ponent parts, or single letters, we shall have Ks, by 
transposition Sk, and Xuthus is transformed into 
Skuth, a palpable Scythian by name, and I have no 
doubt by language also ; and as tEoIlis, Dorus, and 
Xuthus were sons of Deucalion by ihe same mother, 
Orseis, what is proved of the latter will also be 
conclusive as to the two former. It is quite clear 



332 ON THE GENIUS OF THE LANGUAGES OF ASIA 

that the whole account is pure mythology, or at 
any rate that it carries us back to the Pelasgi, and 
that the Pelasgi, to use the very remarkable words 
of Herodotus, had not yet begun to he Greeks. When 
Dionysius of Halicarnassus derives the Latin from 
the JEolic, that ^Eolic was ancient Celtic or Scythic ; 
and I am strongly disposed to believe that the 
etymology of the word was the Arabic Aoual, or 
Awwal, iirst, denoting eldest son, as forming the 
name of ^olus, and oldest Dialect, as applied to 
one of the four of ancient Greece. Dorus I regard 
as cognate with the Sanskrit Dru, and the Greek 
Drus. By adding the Arabic Avord Hiat, life, to 
Dru, we have Dryad, and Druid, or those who 
passed their life in the woods, and by adding the 
Sanskrit Ian, man or person, to Dru, we have by 
transposition, Dorian^ or an inhabitant of the wood- 
lands^ or rather of the country in its primitive 
state before it was cleared of wood, which overran 
all Europe as well as America, and the existence of 
which is attested by the description of the great 
Hercynian forest in Germany by Caesar, Tacitus, 
and Plutarch. This etymology of the word Dorians, 
as descriptive of a mode of life^ is confirmed by that 
of lonians.* In his account of the expedition of 
Xerxes, Herodotus says, the lonians, armed like the 
Greeks, appeared with a fleet of one hundred ships. 
According to the Grecian account, this people, when 
they inhabited that part of the Peloponnesus caUed 
Achaia, before the arrival of Danaus and Xuthus, 

* Vide Dissertation on the different Names of the Ionic 
Race at the end of the work. 



were called the Pelasgian ^gialians. They were 
afterwards named lonians from Ion, son of Xuthus. 
(Lib. vii. c. 94.) Before the arrival of Danaus and 
Xuthus, the lonians were called Jllgialians. Danaus, 
according to tradition, was an Egyptian, and Xuthus 
is equivalent to Scythian. The etymology of iEgi- 
alians ought to be Greek, and it is so, from 

Aigialos (A/y^aXo^-), littus, the sea-shore. 

Ian (Sanskrit), man or person. 
But so unfortunately, for the fable is that of Ionia, 
which has precisely the same meaning, from 

Aion (Ai'oiv, Dor. pro H'iwu), littus, the sea-shore. 

Ian (Sanskrit), man or person. 
And accordingly we iind that Asiatic Ionia formed 
the sea coast of the provinces of Lydia and Caria, 
and that the term lonians appropriately described 
the local situation of its inhabitants. According 
to Strabo, the Maeso- Goths of the banks of the 
Danube were identical with the Mysians of Asia 
Minor, whose origin carries us back to a remote 
antiquity, and to the fabulous Mysus of Herodotus, 
who was the brother of Tyrrhenus, the founder of 
the Italian Tyrrhenians, or Etruscans ; so that, 
though we have no specimen of the Ma^so-Gothic 
older than the Gospels of Ulphilas, the language 
itself is almost certainly as old, perhaps older than 
either the Greek or Latin, which we have been 
accustomed to regard as pre-eminently old lan- 
guages, for no other reason than because they 
contain authors who wrote some centuries before 
the Christian era. We are accustomed to call the 
Italian, the Spanish, the Portuguese, and the 



334 ON THE GENIUS OF THE LANGUAGES OF ASIA 

French, tlie daughters of the Latin ; but they would 
probably have been very nearly or altogether what 
they are, though no such language as the Latin, and 
no such people as the Romans, had ever existed. 
All the principal languages of ancient and modern 
Europe are derived from the Sarmatian, or Slavonic, 
and the Celtic, and there can be little doubt that a 
large portion of the Italian is identical with the 
Lingua Rustica which was spoken in ancient 
Italy, though Latin is the only written language 
that has come down to us ; and I can state, from my 
own examination, that in very many instances the 
Italian form of several Italian words approaches 
much more closely to the Sanskrit, perhaps the 
oldest language of Asia, than that of the corre- 
sponding Roman ones from which they are generally 
supposed to have been derived. 

183. I cannot close these speculations without 
saying a few words as to the probable future fate 
of the world in connexion with the subject of lan- 
guage generally, and the fortune of the Enghsh 
language in particular. A large class of philo- 
sophers, who have obtained the name of Optimists, 
suppose that all the past events recorded by history, 
if regarded in a broad and general way, have 
tended to raise, if not the immediate, the ultimate 
condition of the species, and that all those which 
are to happen in the unbounded ages of the future 
will tend equally to the amelioration of political 
and social institutions, and the elevation of the 
human character. A being so shortsighted as man 



AS COMPAEED WITH THOSE OE EUROPE. 335 

can neither see clearly nor reason conclusively on 
such subjects ; but, judging from present appear- 
ances, and applying the knowledge we have acquired 
so slowly and laboriously of the working of the 
principle of population, one species of melioration 
is likely to be produced in a mode which, reasoning 
a ]jriori^ would have appeared the most incredible, 
namely, by the annihilation of all the inferior races 
of mankind, or their absorption in the Caucasian "^ 
race. I use the term inferior races of mankind 
without the smallest hesitation ; for he who is not 
convinced that the white, or Caucasian, race is 
immeasurably superior to the copper-coloured and 
black in intellectual and moral qualities, has, it 
appears to me, read history to very little purpose. 
But this circumstance, so far from exonerating the 

* Under the term Caucasian race are comprised the fol- 
lowing people, whether ancient or modern : the Syrians and 
Assyrians, Chaldeans, Medes, Persians, Jews, Egyptians, Geor- 
gians, Circassians, Mingrelians, Armenians, Turks, Arabs, 
Afghans, Hindoos of high cast, Gipsies, Tatars (Tartars), 
Moors and Berbers in Africa, Guanches in the Canary Islands, 
Greeks, Romans, and all the Europeans except the Laplanders. 
This enumeration includes all the human races in which the in- 
tellectual endowments of man have shone forth in the greatest 
native vigour, have received the highest cultivation, and have 
produced the richest and most abundant fruits, in philosophy, 
science, and art, in religion and morals, in poetry, eloquence, 
and the fine arts, in civilization and government ; in all that 
can dignify and ennoble the species. We cannot, therefore, 
wonder that they should in all cases have not merely van- 
quished, but held in permanent subjection, all the other races." 
— Lectures on Physiology, Zoology, and the Natural History 
of Man, by W. Lawrence, F.R.S.: London, 1819. 



336 ox THE GENIUS OF THE LANGUAGES OF ASIA 

superior race from the obligations of morality, 
ouglit to render them more binding. The greatest 
of Roman poets has inculcated the duty " Parcere 
subjectis ; " the greatest of English poets has finely 
remarked, in the same spirit of humanity, that " it 
is excellent to have a giant's strength, but it is 
tyrannous to use it like a giant ; " and Rehgion 
herself has informed us, that "where much is 
given, much will be required." I am not speaking, 
however, of what ought to be, but of what is. 
Much progress has already been made in the work 
of destruction."^ The native race has disappeared 
so lono; in all the Islands of the West Indies, that 
its existence is almost forgotten. The two cen- 
turies that have elapsed since Europeans settled in 
l^orth America, have nearly sufficed for the annihi- 
lation of the aboriginal race ; and probably by the 
end of the present or the completion of the first 
half of the following century, not a vestige will 
remain of their having ever existed. In the south- 
ern continent of the same country, the aborigines 
wiU probably be absorbed by, and lost in, the 
European race by intermarriage. In every country 
of Europe population is increasing beyond the 

* Dr. Robertson, describing the exertions of Las Casas in 
favour of the Indians, says, " With tlie moving eloquence na- 
tural to a man on whose mind the scenes which he had beheld 
had made a deep impression, he described the irreparable waste 
of the human species in the New World, the Indian race almost 
totally swept away in the islands in less than fifty years, and 
hastening to extinction on the continent with the same rapid 
decay." — History of America, book vi. 



AS COJ^IPARED WITH THOSE OF EUROPE. 337 

means of subsistence ; and this is not a temporary 
and local circumstance, but an eternal and uni- 
versal one. It always has been the case, and 
always will continue to be so to the end of time. 
It was the operating principle in scattering man- 
kind originally over the surface of the earth, and 
it will continue to operate until that surface is not 
only fully covered, but peopled up to its maximum 
of possible produce. It is probably peopled very 
nearly up to its actual produce already, or, in other 
words, no more human beings could subsist as 
hunters, fishers, and shepherds, than do exist. We 
have seen the fate of the Aborigines of North 
America, and nothing but the unhealthiness of 
Western Africa has prevented the formation of 
European settlements, and the consequent extirpa- 
tion of the Negro race ; while in the south of that 
continent the extension of the colony of the Cape of 
Good Hope is the proscription of the Hottentot and 
Caifre ; the increase of the European, is the destruc- 
tion of the African population. When we took 
possession of the vast island, or rather continent, of 
New HoUand, it was probably fully peopled up to 
the numbers it was capable of supporting in the 
actual mode of life of the natives, ^. e, as hunters 
and fishers, as the country contains no large ani- 
mals, and little game of any sort, and the extension 
of the European race there, and every where else 
similarly circumstanced, must operate, in the first 
instance, as a prohibition to the increase of the na- 
tive race ; next, to their diminution ; and eventually, 

z 



338 ON THE GENIUS OF THE LANGUAGES OF ASIA 

to their destruction. In every instance there can 
be no doubt as to the final result, and it is merely 
a question of time. Resistance is altogether out of 
the question ; for not only is knowledge power, but 
accumulated knowledge is augmented power. The 
Negro or copper- coloured race stand no more chance 
when opposed to the Caucasian, than the wild 
beasts of the forest do when opposed to themselves, 
and even of that Caucasian race, the mixed breed 
which was produced in the vast regions of Sc5rthia, 
Scandinavia, or Tartary, from the confluence of the 
inhabitants of Southern Asia, and which peopled 
Greece, Italy, Sicily, and Europe generally, has 
almost invariably proved itself much superior to its 
parent stock, the unmixed Asiatic races of Syria, 
Persia, Hindustan, and Arabia, on ahnost every 
occasion in which they have been brought into con- 
tact — at Marathon, Salamis, and Plat sea ; in the 
not inferior victories of Cimon, the son of Miltiades, 
one of the greatest and best of a heroic race ; in 
the " Anabasis " of Xenophon, in the Expedition of 
Alexander, in the Crusades, and in the various 
invasion and settlements in India by the Portu- 
guese, the Dutch, the French, and the English, 
since the discovery of the passage by the Cape of 
Good Hope. The modern Europeans, though per- 
haps inferior to the Georgians and Circassians, who 
are also an extremely mixed race, in personal 
beauty, appear to be greatly superior to the Asiatics 
generally both in physical power and intellectual 
capacity. 



AS COMPARED WITH THOSE OF EUROPE. 339 

184. The exceptions which record the triumphs 
of the Asiatic over the European race are compara- 
tively few and unimportant. The most splendid 
instances are undoubtedly the victories of the Car- 
thaginians in the second Punic war, if we receive 
the traditional account of their being a Tyrian 
colony, and speaking a Shemitic language ; and the 
conquest of Spain by the Arabs in comparatively mo- 
dern terms. Each of these events for a time threat- 
ened to change the face of the world, and reverse 
the history of the species. If the gigantic military 
genius of Hannibal had been seconded by adequate 
supplies from Carthage, or even if he had succeeded 
in forming a junction with the army of his brother 
Asdrubal, nothing appears to have been impossible 
to that vast capacity, which^ during the long space 
of fifteen years, and apparently with means the 
most inadequate, triumphed over all difficulties 
physical and moral. The Romans would have been 
unable to keep the field, their city would have been 
invested, and probably taken, the empire of the 
civihzed world would have fallen to Carthage, and 
instead of reading the history of that war in the 
splendid page of Livy, we might at this moment 
have been studying the Periplus of Hanno in the 
original Punic, instead of perusing its fragments in 
a Greek translation. And in the eighth century, if 
the northern progress of the Saracens had not been 
arrested at Tours by the conquering sword of 
Charles Martel, the victorious Crescent might have 
supplanted the prostrate cross on the towers of 

z2 



340 ON THE GENIUS OF THE LANGUAGES OF ASIA 

Kome, Paris, and London, as well as on those of 
Santa Sophia at Constantinople. At many periods 
since the conquest of the latter city by Mahomet II. 
in 1453, the fortunes of the Christian and Ma- 
hometan races appeared to tremble in the balance, 
and Europe was perplexed "with fear of change" 
when the progress of the Turkish arms was arrested 
at Lepanto in 1571 by Don John of Austria, and 
in 1683, when the siege of Vienna was raised by 
John Sobieski, King of Poland. As exemplifying 
the contest between the two races of Asia and 
Europe, however, the Turks are not altogether in 
point, as they have a strong infusion of Northern 
blood in their veins, and came from Scythia, Scan- 
dinavia, or Tartary, like ahnost all the nations both 
of ancient and modern Europe ; and whenever they 
have been tolerably well commanded, have proved 
themselves to be most formidable enemies. 

185. Having said so much respecting the origin 
of the English language, it is impossible not to 
advert to what is likely to be its future progress and 
ultimate fate, though this is one of the numerous 
questions " caligine mersas." While we remark 
the numerous English words borrowed from the 
Sanskrit, we cannot but advert to the singular for- 
tune of the Sanskrit itself, the mother of the lan- 
guages and dialects of the vast continent of India ; 
the language of the state and of religion, of poetry 
and philosophy, gradually expiring in its native 
seats, without any foreign invasion or domestic re- 
volution that we can trace of sufficient magnitude 



AS COMPAEED WITH THOSE OF EUROPE. 341 

to produce such a change ! But it may be said 
that the Sanskrit has only shared the fate of the 
languages of Greece and Rome, the equally polished 
vehicles of thought, of a more intellectual and 
powerful people. Are we then to judge of the 
future from the past, and are universal decay and 
unsparing destruction the lesson which that past 
teaches ? There is a broad distinction betAveen the 
circumstances of the ancient and the modern world, 
which is likely to exert a mighty influence on the 
future fortunes of the human race. In the first 
place, the improvement in the art of war has 
fully kept pace with, perhaps more than kept pace 
with, the general progress of the human mind ; and 
the invention of gunpowder and fire-arms has ren- 
dered it morally impossible that the civilized world 
should ever again be overrun and subdued by the 
barbarians of the North, as was the Roman empire : 
or, granting the possibility of such an invasion by 
the hordes of Tartary, which, by the advance of 
our knowledge respecting the laws of population 
we can demonstrate to be any thing but countless, 
the invention of another noble art, that of printing, 
has so multiphed books as to secure the duration of 
the present stock of knowledge against the operation 
of any revolution, or series of revolutions, we can 
form any conception of, unless they at the same 
time destroyed the human race itself. The English 
language appears to be rapidly extendmg itself 
over every part of the vast continent of North 
America, as civilization pursues its march from the 

z 3 



342 ON THE GENIUS OF THE LANGUAGES OF ASIA 

Atlantic towards the Pacific Ocean ; in another 
century, hardly a vestige will remain of the Ab- 
original Indian race, to whom an encroachment on 
their hunting grounds is as much a virtual sentence 
of annihilation as if they were doomed to be shot 
through the head with rifles ; and in two centuries 
from the present time, supposing the population 
of America continues to increase at its present rate, 
the English language will probably be spoken by 
one third of the human race. We can picture to 
ourselves the western coast of that vast continent, 
with its cities rivalling the New Yorks, Bostons, 
Philadelphias, and New Orleans', of the eastern, 
and a new and unbounded career opened to the 
master minds of whom England is now so justly 
proud. The " Wealth of Nations" of Smith — a 
man born less for his particular country than for 
the world at large — may teach them that com- 
merce does not, like war, enrich by fraud or force, 
but by equal and legitimate exchange, and that 
in the utmost advance of other countries in popu- 
lation, industry, art, and refinement, we ought only 
to regard them as so many new customers, who will 
not merely demand the productions of our manu- 
factures and foreign commerce, but, what is of equal 
importance, have a valuable equivalent to give in 
exchange for what they desire ; as fellow labourers, 
who will add to, instead of jealous rivals, who seek 
to deprive us of our wealth ; the " Essay on the 
Principle of Population," by Malthus, incomparably 
the ablest of Smith's successors, may demonstrate 



AS COMPARED WITH THOSE OF EUROPE. 343 

to tliem the necessary and eternal connection be- 
tween individual morality and national happiness, 
and how little even the best government can do for 
any people compared with what the people must do 
for itself; the beautiful discourses of the amiable 
and elegant-minded Reynolds may inspire them 
with a taste for those fine arts which soften man- 
ners and embellish life, to which he was devoted 
with so ardent an enthusiasm, and in which he be- 
came so distinguished a proficient ; the speeches of 
Fox, which contain so much that is vigorous in 
intellect, sound in feeling, and practical in wisdom, 
may teach generations yet unborn, and states yet 
unformed, to steer their course in troubled times, 
should such arise, by the steady beacon lights of 
liberty, justice, and humanity; and, finally — " the 
greatest is behind " — what shall be the fate of our 
darling Shakspeare, the poet of mankind, the in- 
structor of nations and ages ? I cannot answer 
better than by quoting a passage which indignantly 
and eloquently repels some of the charges of Vol- 
taire : " The Apalachian mountains, and the banks 
of the Ohio, and the plains of Sciota, shall resound 
with the accents of this harharian: in his native 
tongue he shall roll the genuine passions of nature ; 
nor shall the griefs of Lear be alleviated, or the 
charms and wit of Rosalind be abated, by time." 
{An Essay on the Dramatic Character of Sir John 
Falstaff^ by Maurice Morgan. London, 1820. 
p. 69.) 

z 4 



344 



NOTE. 

DISSERTATION ON THE DIFFERENT NAMES OF THE IONIC RACE. 

In reading the accounts which ancient authors give of the 
origin of the tribes and nations, whose history they Jiave under- 
taken to write, we cannot but remark, that in many instances 
we meet with two perfectly distinct, and totally irreconcileable 
relations ; the one being palpably mythological, while the other 
may, by possibility, be nearly, or altogether historical ; and the 
great desideratum is to discover some unequivocal test by the 
application of which we may be enabled to draw the definite 
line which separates fact from fiction. One main point is to 
discover the precise meaning of words, and here in many cases 
we meet with great and unexpected aids. My philological 
pursuits have induced me to come to the conclusion, that all 
proper names, both of persons and places, were primarily signi- 
ficant, and descriptive of the nature and qualities of the objects 
to which they were attached ; and, as it is the aim of every good 
writer to be clearly understood, we shall discover in a great 
variety of instances, that where any particular place is first 
named, the author has defined the signification of that name in 
other ivords; so that the meaning of the proper name being lost, 
he has placed his readers, with respect to it, in the same situa- 
tion as if it had continued to be significant. 

1. Acte, Actice, and Attica. 

Thucydides, describing the operations of Brasidas in Thrace, 
says, he gathered together the Allies and led them into the 
district called Acte. It is a tract which stretches out into the 
sea, from the canal which was dug by Xerxes, and Athos, the 
highest mountain in Acte, is its utmost verge on the -^gean 
Sea. The bulk of the inhabitants are Pelasgians, the issue of 
those Tyrrhenians who formerly inhabited Lemnos and Athens. 
(Smith's Thucydides, Book iv, c. 109.) Though Acte was inha- 
bited by a mixed race, the name is unquestionably Greek, and 
its meaning is defined by Thucydides himself, in the words 
printed in Italics. It is equivalent to Attica, as I shall proceed 
to prove. Strabo, alluding to the various traditions which pre- 
vailed, as to the names of Athens, says, " We may perceive it 



NOTE. 345 

from the different denominations of the country, sometimes 
called Actice, because it is pretended that Actaeon (Act^us) 
reigned there ; sometimes Atthis, and Attice, in memory, say 
they, of Atthis, the daughter of that Cranaus, after whom the 
inhabitants of the country were called Cranai ; sometimes Mop- 
sopia, after Mopsopus ; sometimes Ionia after Ion, the son of 
Xuthus ; sometimes Posidonia and Athenee, from the two divi- 
nities bearing these names." (Geographic de Strabon par Coray, 
tome iii. livre 9. p. 381.) Believing that Actice, from Actseus, 
is mere mythology, not worth a moment's thought, and attach- 
ing great weight to the testimony of Strabo, he shall imsay 
what has just been said, and confirm the above account of Thucy- 
dides, which he does in an earlier passage of the same chapter 
to the following effect : " And if this latter country, whose 
actual name (Attica) is merely an alteration of its ancient one, 
was formerly called Acte and Actice, it is, say they, on account 
of its being situated for the most part at the bottom of a chain 
of mountains, hitt at the same time hounded and enclosed 
by the sea ; it extends at considerable length as far as Sunium." 
(Geographic de Strabon par Coray, tome iii. liv. 9. p. 362.) 
All the manuscripts of Strabo, hitherto discovered, are imper- 
fect at this part, but the hiatus has been filled up by Gemistus 
Pletho, and the passage, as amended by him, is exhibited by the 
French translator as follows : — 

I Ata ^£ TOVTO KoX *AKTrjv (j)a(Ti Xe-^^dwaL to TraXaiop Koi 'AKTiKrjVf rijv 
vvv ^Attik^v TrapovofiaadelffaV) on toIq opeaiv viroTriirTiOKE to TrXelcr- 
Tov iiepoQ avTTJQ aXiTEyeg koi (Ttevov^ jirjKei 3' d^ioXoyw KS'yp-qfxevov 
TTpoTreTTTioKoe /^t'xP^ ''^^ 'Iiovviov. Pliny, in his description of 
Greece, says, " in ea prima Attica antiquitus Acte vocata." 
Acte was clearly a generic name applicable to any extended 
cape, or peninsula. 

2. j^gialos. 

Herodotus, in his description of the lonians, in the expedition 
of Xerxes, says, " According to the Grecian account, this people, 
when they inhabited that part of the Peloponnesus, called 
Achaia, before the arrival of Danaus and Xuthus, were called 
the Pelasgian ^gialians. They were afterwards named lonians, 
from Ion, the son of Xuthus." (Lib. 7. c. 94.) Strabo says, " It 
was not only beyond the Isthmus that the ^olians were so 



346 NOTE. 

powerful, those within were also ^olians ; but in the course of 
time they found themselves mixed in some degree with the 
lonians, who had quitted Attica to occupy the ^gialos (sea 
shore), and in part with the Dorians who, under the command 
of the Heraclidee, founded Megara, and also many cities of Pe- 
loponnesus." (Lib. 8. c. 1.) The account of Pausanias is more 
circumstantial, and is as follows: — " The country which is to the 
east towards the sea, between the Eleans and Sicyonians, is now 
denominated Achaia by its own inhabitants ; it was formerly named 
-^gialos, and its possessors called themselves ^gialians, after 
the name of ^gialos, an ancient king of Sicyon, as the Sicyo- 
nians say. Others believe that this country, which is for the 
most part maritime, derived its name from its situation, the word 
Aigialos (in Greek), signifying the sea-shore. However that 
may have been, after the death of Hellen, his son, Xuthus, driven 
out of Thessaly by his brothers, who accused him of having 
embezzled the treasures of their father, withdrew to Athens 
where he married a daughter of Erectheus, by whom he had 
two sons, Achseus and Ion. Erectheus being dead, his children 
who disputed which should succeed him, agreed to take Xuthus 
as arbitrator of their difference. He decided in favour of Ce- 
crops, who was the eldest, and by so doing drew on himself the 
hatred of the others, so that being driven from Attica he came 
and established himself in ^gialos, and there ended his days." 
(Pausanias. lib. 7. c. 1.) Pliny says, " Achaiae nomen provincias 
ab Isthmo incipit : antea j^gialos vocabatur propter Urbes in 
litore per ordinem dispositos, 

3. Ionia. 

Strabo gives the following account of the origin of the name 
of Ionia : " Achaia," says he, " was anciently possessed by the 
lonians, who were Athenians by origin. Before them it bore 
the name of ^gialos, and its inhabitants of JEgialians, but being 
occupied by the lonians, it was denominated Ionia, a name 
which was also borne by Attica after Ion, the son of Xuthus. It 
is related that Hellen, the son of Deucalion, and king of Phthi- 
otis, situated between the Peneus and the Asopus, transmitted 
the sceptre to the eldest of his sons (^olus), and sent the others 
to seek establishments elsewhere. Dorus, one of them, estab- 
lished in the neighbourhood, the colony of Dorians which de- 



NOTE. 347 

rived its name from him. Xuthus, his brother, having married 
the daughter of Erectheus, founded in Attica the Tetrapolis, or 
four cities of JEnoe, Marathon, Probalinthus, and Tricorythus. 
Of the sons of Xuthus, the one named Acheeus, having com- 
mitted an involuntary murder, took refuge in Laconia, and 
gave to its inhabitants the name of Achseans ; the other. Ion, 
having conquered the Thracians, whom Eumolpus had led 
against the Athenians, the latter were so much pleased that 
they confided to him the government of their republic. He 
commenced by dividing the people into four tribes, and after- 
wards into four professions, of labourers, artisans, priests, and 
soldiers ; and, after many similar regulations, bequeathed his 
name to the country. At this period the population of Attica 
was so considerable that a colony of lonians was sent into 
Peloponnesus, ivhere the quarter ivhich they occupied received 
from them the name of Ionia, instead of that of ^gialos, which 
it had borne before their arrival. The inhabitants divided into 
twelve cities relinquished the name of -ffigialians, to assume that 
of lonians." (Strabo, lib. 8. c. 8.) Herodotus, describing the 
lonians of Asia Minor, says, " It appears to me that the lonians 
divided themselves into twelve states, and were unwilling to 
connect themselves with more, simply because in Peloponnesus 
they were originally so circumstanced, as are the Achaeans at 
present, by whom the lonians were expelled. The first of these 
is Pellene, near Sicyon, then ^gira and ^ge, through which 
the Crathis flows, with a never-failing stream, giving its name 
to a well known river in Italy. Next to these is Bura, then 
Helice, to which place the lonians fled, after being vanquished 
in battle by the Achasans. Next follow ^gium, Rhypse, Patrse, 
Pharse, and Olenus, which is watered by the Pyrus, a consider- 
able river. The last are Dyme and Tritcea, the only inland 
city. (Herodotus, lib. 1. c. 145.) The reader will also recol- 
lect that of the twelve States of Asiatic Ionia, Priene, Mi- 
letus, Colophon, Clazomense, Ephesus, Lebedos, Teos, Phocsea, 
Erythrae, and Smyrna, were situated on, or near the sea, while 
Samos and Chios were islands ; and that the Greek province 
of Ionia constituted the sea coast of the provinces of Lydia and 
Caria. 

It appears to me to be hardly possible not to perceive that 
Ion and Achaeus, the two sons of Xuthus, are merely the crea- 



348 NOTE. 

tions of the Genealogical System, and not to suspect that we 
never should have heard a word of either if the Greek writers 
had not conceived it necessary to account for the origin of the 
names of the lonians and the Achseans. The real fact, how- 
ever, is, that all the names of the former are not only significant, 
but have precisely the same meaning, as will be obvious at a 
glance : — 

1. King Actaeus is no other than the Greek word AKraiog — 

litoralis, maritimus. (Scapula.) 

2. Acte, Actice, or Attica, his territory, Aktyi — littus. 

3. King ^gialus, AiytaXoQ — littus, ora maritima. 

4. The ^gialians, his subjects. 
-^Egialos, the sea-shore. 

Jan (Sanskrit), man, or person ; by contraction ^gialians, 
or inhabitants of the sea-shore. 

5. King Ion, the son of Xuthus, 'AYwv Dorice pro 'Kiwy — 

littus. (Scapula.) 

6. The lonians, his descendants, or subjects. 
Aion, Doric form of Eion. 

Jan (Sanskrit), man, or person ; by dropping the initial 

letter, lonians, or inhabitants of the sea-shore. 
A passage occurs in the Twelfth Book of Strabo, in which 
he makes use of the word Eion, to define the meaning of 
Agialos, 'O d' AlyLaXoQ ecrri juev rj'itjp jjiaKpa ttXeiovojp i) EKarov 
ara^LijJV — £)^£i ^e tcaX K^fx-qv bfxbjvvfxov yjq jjiifxyr^rai 6 Troirfrrjg orav (pfj 
KpijjjjLvap T AlyioKov re Kal if^rjXovc 'Fjpvdivovg. 

(Hiad 2. 855.) 
The JEgialus (in Pont us) is a tract of coast more than one 
hundred stadia long, which also possesses a town of the same 
name, to which Homer alludes in the passage — 

" Where Erythinus' rising cliffs are seen, 
Thy groves of box Cytorus ever green. 
And where ^gialus and Cromna lie. 
And lofty Sesamus invades the sky." Pope. 

All the preceding names of the Ionic race, then, were signi- 
ficant, and described a leading circumstance in their mode of 
life ; in the Peloponnesus, in Attica, and in Asiatic Ionia, they 
were equally inhabitants of the sea-shore. Hence we feel 
tempted to form some conjectures, however imperfect, as to the 
origin of the names of the Dorians and u3Eolians. In Gillies' 



> 



NOTE. 349 

History of Greece I find tlie following passage, which I am 
induced to transcribe to escape the imputation of indulging in 
an etymological dream : " The Dorians, who inhabited the 
neighbourhood of Mount Pindus, cheerfully deserted the gloomy 
solitude of their ivoods, in order to seek possessions in a more 
agreeable and better cultivated country." (Vol. i. page 96.) I 
believe the real etymology of Dorus to be the Greek word Drus, 
a tree, by inserting a vowel between the Delta and Eho, or the 
Sanskrit wordDru, a tree, by transposition, and adding a final us. 

Dur, or Dor (Sanskrit), a tree. 

Jan, or Ian, a man, or person — Dorian, an inhabitant of the 
woodlands. 

The classical reader will no doubt recollect that the most 
beautiful specimens of the Doric dialect, we possess, are pastoral 
poems ; and the early Doric race were necessarily shepherds, 
because the practice of agriculture was impossible before the 
country was cleared of its forests. I suspect that the word 
Dorian, is cognate both with Druid and Dryad, from Dru, 
(Sanskrit), a tree, and Hiat (Arabic), life; the former word 
describing a priest dwelling in the woods, and the latter a wood- 
nymph. We hear more about Ion, than of his two brothers, 
because he had the good fortune to be the reputed progenitor 
of the most literary race of the Greeks, the Ionic being the 
original dialect of Attica ; little about Dorus, and the Doric 
library is soon exhausted ; and hardly any thing at all respect- 
ing ^olus, and our knowledge of the ^olic is limited to a few 
brief fragments which make us wish for more. We have seen 
that Strabo calls u^olus the eldest son of Hellen, and I believe 
this is the universally received account. It is quite certain that 
the word Awwal, Uwal, or Uoual, in Arabic, signifies both 
eldest and first, which, with the usual termination us, added by 
the Greeks to Oriental words, forms, I believe, the etymology 
of his name. But we must look for ^olus in Italy, the Latin 
being the true ^olic, and certainly a much older language than 
any written specimens we possess of the Greek ; and of that 
^olic digamma which Bentley supposed to have disappeared 
from the poems of Homer, and was anxious to restore, we find, 
the most indubitable evidence in the existence of many Roman 
words which always formed a part of classical Latin. 

The whole of these genealogies may very easily and naturally 



350 NOTE. 

have originated in a familiar Orientalism, of which I shall 
adduce one example from the Book of Judges, which will 
answer the purpose of illustrating many similar instancei. The 
three following verses, of the sixth chapter, contain a most 
animated and picturesque description of an invasion by the 
Nomadic, or pastoral tribes of Arabia : " 3. And so it was when 
Israel had sown, that the Midianites came up and the Amalek- 
ites, and the Children of the East, even they came up against 
them. 4. And they encamped against them, and destroyed the 
increase of the earth, till thou come unto Gaza, and left no sus- 
tenance for Israel, neither sheep, nor ox, nor ass. 5. For they 
came up with their cattle and their tents, and they came as 
grasshoppers for multitude ; for both they and their camels 
were without number ; and they entered into the land to destroy 
it." In the English version, as we perceive, they are denomi- 
nated Children of the East, in the Septuagint Y\o\ avarokiov, 
and in the original Hebrew, Beni Kedem. This produces no 
mistake as long as we read it in an Oriental language, and 
remember the proneness of the East to figure and personifica- 
tion, but to the primitive Greeks the word Kedem, the East, 
transformed into Cadmus, became a real man, and his descend- 
ants Cadmeans, or Thebans. Cadmus, says our illustrious 
Newton, in his Chronology, signifies a man from the East, and 
Strabo mentions the Arabians who came with Cadmus, to ce 
TraXaiov icai Ajoa^ec oi Kadfio) (rvvBidGavTEc. (Lib. x.) I do not 
adduce either of these passages as historical, but simply as 
etymological authority to prove that the derivation of the word 
Cadmus is Oriental, being fully convinced that everything con- 
nected with the man Cadmus is pure mythology. The Hera- 
clidse, or fabulous descendants of Hercules, whose name occurs 
so often in early Greek History, are also merely a creation of 
the Genealogical System, and only prove the fact that Europe 
generally was peopled from Asia, the etymology being 

Heri (Sanskrit) Lord, 

Kala, or Cala — Time, 
and hence Erakles, Greek, and Hercules, Latin, the Lord of 
Time, or the Sun (Vide Pausanias, lib. 8. c. 31.) — and the 
Heraclidse, his descendants, or the inhabitants of the East. A 
writer in any of the Shemitic languages, or dialects of the 
Arabic, would, as a matter of course, and as perfectly agreeable 



NOTE. 351 

to the genius of those languages, have denominated the lonians 
the Sons, or Children of Acte, ^gialos, or Aion, all words 
desci ' ive of their local situation as residing on the border of 
the sea, and Homer himself would have experienced no difficulty 
in describing the ^gialians, as Yleg AlyiaXov^ or Sons of the 
Sea-coast. 



THE END. 



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